January 25, 2025 • 60 mins
What would it look like if every believer in Christ began to look like God in their daily lives?
Exciting news!!! You can now join Henry, live via Zoom, for Empowerment Sessions every Sunday morning at 1030am EST, by clicking the link below, or by using the ID and passcode provided below. https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82108038420?pwd=twW0ChMfqMskiPizTEFEbOPFq8zORT.1 Meeting ID: 821 0803 8420 Passcode: 439385
Empowerment sessions are not a church service—but are a service to the church. Our automobiles, homes, electronics and various other tools in our lives need maintenance, upgrades and repairs. Are we as a person any different? Empowerment Sessions are where believers get the opportunity to make the necessary corrections, adjustments and spiritual enhancements needed to be better equipped to live more powerful lives for Christ. Acts 1:8 Empowerment sessions offer the opportunity for one-on-one coaching, discipleship and self-improvement, in a confidential but very transparent group setting. Those who attend experience powerful personal sharing of life experiences and struggles which allows for all to defeat the lie of the enemy that says “you’re all alone in this”. You are not alone. You are just a few clicks away from your empowerment. You need to join us soon.
Exciting news!!! You can now join Henry, live via Zoom, for Empowerment Sessions every Sunday morning at 1030am EST, by clicking the link below, or by using the ID and passcode provided below. https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82108038420?pwd=twW0ChMfqMskiPizTEFEbOPFq8zORT.1 Meeting ID: 821 0803 8420 Passcode: 439385
Empowerment sessions are not a church service—but are a service to the church. Our automobiles, homes, electronics and various other tools in our lives need maintenance, upgrades and repairs. Are we as a person any different? Empowerment Sessions are where believers get the opportunity to make the necessary corrections, adjustments and spiritual enhancements needed to be better equipped to live more powerful lives for Christ. Acts 1:8 Empowerment sessions offer the opportunity for one-on-one coaching, discipleship and self-improvement, in a confidential but very transparent group setting. Those who attend experience powerful personal sharing of life experiences and struggles which allows for all to defeat the lie of the enemy that says “you’re all alone in this”. You are not alone. You are just a few clicks away from your empowerment. You need to join us soon.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hell, old friend, Henry Flowers. Here, powerful living outreach ministries
coming at you once again over the YouTube air waves.
Happy to get involved and dive into the Word of
God this morning. If you have Ephesians chapter five, we
are going to jump in this morning in this realm
(00:28):
of powerful living. There's an opportunity for us to be
a pretender an imitator. It says that we have the
opportunity to imitate God, and we'll dove into that and
see what that looks like today. You know, we do
that though. As human beings. We just imitate stuff. You know,
(00:48):
a lot of the idiosyncrasies that you have, stuff that
you say, habits that you have, jokes that you tell,
little sly remarks, little ways that you about yourself. Most
of the time you have gotten those from somebody. You like,
somebody you think highly of something you've seen before, You've
(01:11):
seen something done by somebody, and you want to do it,
and we imitate it. So many Let's take if we
just take the world of sports. Just for so many years,
I just didn't know about the game of tennis. I
wasn't exposed to it. I mean I had seen tennis
(01:32):
rackets before I had even gone out. I can remember
just back in the day when my sisters and I
were just young, maybe teenagers. But we go over to
Auntie's house and she'd have a couple of tennis rackets
and some tennis balls, and we go out there and
hit balls and whack hit it over the fence and
you know, chase balls in That lasts for about five
(01:54):
minutes til we get sick of each other hitting balls
over the fence and we just move on to something else. Man,
something happened to me at I guess when I was
thirty years old. Something happened that changed all of that.
When all of those times where I used to play
tennis before, man, I took that thing to a whole
(02:17):
nother level when I turned on a TV and saw
Raphael Nadal played tennis. I think he was playing against
Roger Federer, and there was an interview about him and
he talked about him playing left handed. And I actually
(02:41):
didn't realize this until later on, but Raphael Nadal from
Spain one of the great tennis players of all time.
Some people think he's the greatest, definitely well beloved. This
guy is right handed, but learn how to play tennis
(03:01):
left handed because he wanted the advantage. And so here
I am at thirty six years old, and I started
playing tennis and I saw him, and I'm naturally left handed,
and I was like, wait a minute, what is this
advantage that lefties have? And so I started doing research
(03:25):
into that and started learning about that. But man, from
then on, it was tennis all day long. I still
played some basketball, but it was tennis because of what
I saw. I saw Rafa and o'damond the way he played. Man,
I wanted to play like Rafa, left handed man, spin
(03:45):
that ball, take advantage of the lefty advantage. And then
William's sisters were on the scene. I was like, man,
these two black sisters taking over running things. Oh man,
let's go. Man, and I go out there watch a
tennis match and then get out there on that court
and try to imitate what I saw. And this was
(04:09):
beginning tennis. And brother, you couldn't tell me in my mind.
In my mind, you couldn't tell me that I was
not doing on that tennis court what Raeford was doing
on that television. You couldn't tell me. But as time progressed,
I wanted to improve my game and get better and
actually started returning more than one or two shots, you know,
and actually possibly start winning some matches. So in order
(04:32):
to do that, I started recording myself. Got my little
camera out there in my little tripod, and I started
recording myself, especially when it came to the serve, because
I wanted to have a really, really powerful I wanted
to have a pro level serve. I didn't want to
just make up something just get the points started. No, man,
I wanted to have a pro level weapon of a serve.
(04:55):
And man, did reality show up when I grabbed that
camera and looked at the footage that I had recorded,
and I saw myself, Oh god, who.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
When I replayed that video of me playing, and in
my mind, I was roughing the doll and on that video,
I was everything.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Except we'll just put it like that I had a
long way to go. But that video told everything. That
video was telling me that I had a long way
to go before I was doing anything that looked like
what Rafa was doing on that court. And I'm talking
(05:54):
about I'm not talking about the physicality. No, we all
know they are athletes and we are not. Okay, they are.
They just different people. But I'm just talking about being
able to learn the techniques and the style, the form,
it's the footwork. You can do those things. Man, that
(06:17):
video told the whole story. Video said to me, Henry,
you are not imitating Rafael Nadal. It might be some
Raphael out there that you are imitating, but it ain't
Raphael Nadal. But I worked on my game and worked
on my game, and I kept watching Rafa and I
(06:40):
kept getting in front of that camera, and before you
know it, I fell in love with this game. Fifty
one years old. Now I've been playing this game for
that long. What are that seventeen years? Thirty six to
fifty one, sixteen years going on seventeen, I think, and
brother got championships. I got championships. Loved this game because
(07:04):
I've watched somebody do something and I said, wow, I
want to do that. Got championships. So I have the
two thousand and twenty three Greater Cincinnati Inner Club Tennis
(07:32):
Association Mixed Doubles Championship, back to back seasons, undefeated. Yep,
that's me. So if you look up in the books
the gci TA Championships of twenty twenty three, you'll see
(07:58):
my name in there forever, I'm pretty proud of it.
You know, listen, how many championships do we have? I
don't know how many championships you have? How many do
you have? Zoomers, anybody out there got championships? I don't know.
If you ever win a championship at something, you will
(08:19):
honor and treasure that because you start competing against people
who have the same goals, same aspirations as you, same drive,
some of them have the same skill. And you get
out on that field of competition and you wage battle
with each other to see who wins the prize. Man,
(08:40):
you'll find out, is one thing to win a championship.
But there's a reason not everybody has one. M Something
occurred to me when I watched Ralph and Addell said,
I want to imitate that. So in this realm of
(09:01):
powerful living, we're talking about creating a life that we love.
You know, there are things that you must do, and
that's I always love to tell people. You know, I
love church. I'll never go away from church. The way
it shows up, gathering together in a building with fellow believers,
(09:27):
hearing the word of God, singing songs to worship God.
You know, the communion, take up the offering, laying on
of hands, all the things that come along with the
traditional church services. Those things are all great, and I'll
(09:50):
never walk away from those things. But in this expression,
we have a different of church to where we focus
on putting powerful living into action, and we focus on
the how tos, the things about our faith where we
(10:13):
can practice being like Christ, doing the work of Christ,
being his hands and feet. The outreach, the meeting your neighbor,
the prayer, the reading the Bible, all these things that
are actually by products, supposed to be byproducts of people
(10:35):
who say that I am in Christ. Those are the
things that we focus on on our Sunday expression. So
these are how to's, practical ways that we learn how
to more and more be like Christ. And so when
we gather together on Sunday mornings, I'll deliver this podcast
(10:58):
for about thirty minutes forty minutes however long I speak,
and then after that we go into what we call
empowerment sessions. And those empowerment sessions are like all of
those times where I was out there on the tennis
court practicing, working on my game, had the camera out
there because I wanted to see what my serve looked like.
I wanted to see if I was actually tossing the
(11:20):
ball the way I thought I was. I wanted to
see if I was actually turning my shoulders. On the forehand,
I wanted to see. I want to see you. I
want to see I wanted to practice because I wanted
to get better, and I got better got championships as
a result. And so we want to get some championships
for Jesus. And so when we gather together on Sunday mornings, man,
we practice in this thing. In our empowerment sessions. People
(11:41):
aren't afraid to share their struggles, share their weaknesses, reveal
the flaws in their game. And I'll reveal some of
mind today as we delve into Ephesians chapter five, and
paul Is writ into the church at Ephesus, showing them
what it looks like to imitate Christ, because that should
(12:02):
be the game for everybody who says, I love Jesus,
the God of Jehovah, the Lord God of the God.
His name is Jehovah, the Lord God of Jacob, Isaac
and Israel. I'm a descendant of his. I've been grafted
into Abraham's blessing and Abraham's promise because I said yes
(12:24):
to Jesus. Those are the people that I'm talking to.
You should have some victories in his name. You read
the Old Testament and the people the Syrian army and
these other people. They say, oh, that's those children of Israel.
(12:45):
Oh hey, hey, listen, y'all, don't mess with them. Those
people their God is with them, y'all. Listen, these people different.
Y'all might want to think about it before y'all go
to war with them. Their God is with them. Okay,
we worship gods and we have these idols and stuff,
(13:06):
but just understand these people right here, those children of Israel,
that they different. Their God is with them. Man would
to God that someone would say that about me on
this earth. Oh you know that guy, Henry, Oh, Henry Flowers. Yeah,
(13:27):
like that guy. He's a good tennis player, man, and
God is with him. That dude is the real deal. Yeah.
So all that time working on my game, trying to
(13:47):
be a better tennis player, and those are the things
that we want to model here at Powerful Living Ministries.
We want to put it into practice and take a
look at what we're doing, and take a look at
what we're not doing, and work on these things. Because
this is this is the real deal, y'all. You know
(14:08):
God is you know, God is imminent. He he is approaching,
He is on the way. Judgment is coming and everyone
will be judged. No one will escape and will stand
before the Almighty God Jehovah Yahweh. Will get in front
(14:33):
of him and give account of our lives and the
things that we have done or not done. That's real
for me, and I want it to be real for you.
And that's why we do these things. That's why we
gather together. That's why we constantly are working on our
stuff to make sure that one day we'll be able
to give a count we They say, yep, Lord, you
(14:55):
know what I preach, the Gospel, shared your word with people,
and this person is in the body of Christ because
of my work in their life. Yep. These are the
amount of hours that I've volunteered helping those who needed help.
These are the many times where I've spoken for those
(15:17):
who could not speak for themselves. These are the times.
This is it, this is it. We'll give account, that's
what it says, even says to a more minute degree,
he says, we'll give an account for every idle word
that proceeds out of our mouths. Now that part is
scary to me, because sometimes my mouth gonna get pretty idle,
and I don't like it. You have Ephesians chapter five.
(15:46):
Here's the apostle Paul writing to the church at Ephesus.
Ephesians chapter five, Verse one. We'll start, let's read together.
I'll read from the New Living Translation. Imitate God therefore
(16:09):
in everything you do, because you are His dear children.
That's because I love that he just made that first
sentence really plain. He threw out an idea, and he
gave you the reason why. He says, because you are
his dear, dear children, imitate him. What was that story
(16:29):
your mom was telling yesterday about the family member and
he was traveling somewhere and he goes into this hotel
or something, and the people at the hotel looked at
him and say, you look like so and so right,
(16:50):
and they're like, what what do you? Oh? Thank you.
I appreciate that. You know. He thought they was just
giving him a coming. And they're like no, no, wow,
like you really look like so. You need to meet
this guy and say they go back and get this
guy and he comes up and looks at him. The
dudes looking into the face of his father, who was
(17:13):
absentee and had left years ago. He looked like him.
It was unmistakable to everybody, to the point where they said,
good Lord, let me go get him. Let me show
you how much you look like him. And it turns
out he was him, He was his seed. Awkward boy
(17:36):
would to God? Did somebody could look at me and say, man,
you look like Jesus? What if they could look at
my life and say, this dude looks like Jesus. All right?
Imitate God therefore and everything you do, because you are
his dear children. If you are his children, you should
look like him. That's pretty plain right. In verse two,
(17:58):
he says, live a life filled with love, following the
example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as
a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. Let
there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you.
(18:24):
Such sins have no place among God's people. He says,
y'all shouldn't be like that. You should be different behavior
coming from the people of God is what Paul is saying.
And we've talked about this many times, especially recently here
in the past saying about God's children should be different.
We should be different. And here's Paul declaring it again
(18:46):
to another church. He's saying, listen, let there be no
sexual immorality. Our sex lives should be different than folks
who don't believe in God. The way we approach our
sexuality should be different. He said, it shouldn't be immoral.
(19:10):
Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity. We should be
pure in all things. In our motives and the things
that we go after. There should be pure motives and
the things that we go after, the way we work,
the way we gain money. There should be purity in
our lives. And then he comes along. He says, or
(19:31):
greed among you, believers in Jesus Christ should not be greedy.
You should not be grabbing a hold of as much
material things as you can to the point where you
have excess and it causes someone else to lack. That's
(19:52):
what greed is. That's what greed looks like. You've grabbed
a hold of a substance of things, something valuable, food,
and you've grabbed more than you can actually consume for yourself,
and it caused somebody else to go without. He says, No,
(20:13):
we shouldn't be greedy. Such sins have no place among
God's people. Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes, these
are not for you. I really got to work on
that because I can admit sometimes you know, it's never
(20:34):
gonna happen professionally. I'm never gonna have course talk, foolish talk,
obscene jokes. That's never gonna happen professionally. I've been doing
this too long to let my curse word slip or
something like that. Curse words don't slip. That don't slip.
You know what you said, and you knew you was
gonna say it before you said it. That doesn't happen.
(20:56):
That's never gonna happen for me professional. I'm never gonna
do it from the pulpit because number one, it's not right,
and number two, because I spend a lot of time
calling people out for it. M M. There's no way
I'm gonna be There's no way I'm gonna be on
my podcast calling out false teachers. And you know, there's
been some talk recently about this one lady. She tends
(21:21):
to curse during her messages and use course languages and
you know, use derogatory term for the human anatomy and
that kind of stuff and all these street terms that
she used right there from the poolpit, and she's been
called out. I've called her out, people calling her out
and all these kind of things, because there's there are
people of God are saying, hey, there's the standard that
we should be living up to. And part of learning
(21:44):
what's right is pointing out what's wrong. So if anybody
out there is coming at believers for you call them
trash talking to other believers, ain't we on the same set?
Are y'all coming after her for this blah blah blah
blah blah. No miss me with that stuff, and y'all
(22:05):
sound like hypocrites. Don't stop that. Stop that. We've been
called to rebuke and to correct. And part of teaching
the gospel is, yes, teaching what is right, but it
also is teaching what is wrong. So if somebody is
standing in god stead and is ministering the word of God,
they ought to be falling up under this thing that
(22:28):
the apostle Paul is talking about. No obscene stories, foolish talk,
or coarse jokes. That's why we call people out online.
That's why we call out false teachers. False doctrine, people
who manipulate money from people, people who are sexually immoral,
(22:49):
and you represent in Christ. Yep, We're gonna call you
out every time because this is what Paul is doing.
We gotta do those four things things. Remember the four
things that I told you that the Bible does. There's
four things that the Bible reveals. Here we go what's right,
what's wrong? How to get right, and how to stay right.
(23:15):
And when we say right, just understand righteous. Okay, what's righteous?
What's evil? How to get right and how to stay righteous.
Those are four things that the Bible exposes no matter
where you eat, and that's the standard. That's who we
are supposed to be. And this is what's Paul is
(23:36):
saying to us here he says, so obsceeing stories and
verse four, obseeing stories, foolish talking, coarse joke, these are
not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God.
You can be sure that no immoral, impure or greedy
person will inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God.
(23:57):
For a greed person is an adult worshiping the things
of this world. Now, this is what is coming down to,
because we got to understand it's gonna be a sad
day that you do all of the work that comes
along with living for Christ. You do all of that work,
(24:20):
and then on the day of judgment, God says, depart
from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.
He says, there's no relationship. God forbid that I be
one of those people who have a form of godliness.
But deny the power thereof. There's a lot of scripture
(24:43):
that speaks to that idea, these people who have a
form of godliness tradition, in God's word or God's teachings.
You are a church goer, you know the scriptures. You
even do some benevolent things to help people. You have
a way of Godliness about you. But he says you
(25:09):
deny the power thereof. He says, you have a way
of godliness, but there's power that's lacking in your life,
power that's designed to deliver other people. Every time God
showed up with power, it was to meet a need
for somebody else. Every miracle that Jesus did in the
Bible that's reading about it was to meet a need
for somebody else. To help somebody's life get better, help
(25:31):
them come to the knowledge of something. If it was
the knowledge of Him or the knowledge of something that
they needed right all in these things, God shows up
with power in order to deliver people. There's not just
some flashy thing he did to make you think he's awesome.
And when we show up with power in people's lives,
it should be something that benefits them. And those are
(25:54):
the things that we practice in powerful living ministries, going around,
meet your neighbor, learning how to have opportunities to volunteer. Listen,
there's gonna be a time where you deny yourself to
help someone else. He says, No greedy person shall inherit
the kingdom of God. Is what Paul just said. He says,
(26:18):
do the opposite of that for a greedy person as
an idolatry worshiping the things of this world. Now here
we go verse six. This is really interesting because Paul
digs in and goes another level deeper when he says,
(26:39):
don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins,
for the anger of God will fall on all who
disobey him. Don't be fooled by those who try to
excuse these sins. You know who I'm talking about. See this,
I love I just love how the Bible is just
real and relevant. And I don't believe people who refer
(27:01):
to the scriptures as archaic and old and all this
kind of stuff. They are not reading the scriptures. Tell
me people today are not trying to excuse sins. Tell
me that's not happening today. Oh, people don't do Oh,
people don't make excuses. People don't uh people who let's
(27:23):
let's let's take the Word of Faith movement. Well, you
can just speak the word of God and you can
hold him at his word and old God's feet to
the fire. And I'm claiming my stuff in Jesus name,
and God has to give me my stuff. I've decreed
(27:45):
and declare it. I want my stuff. Come on, man, Well,
I'm a king's kid and God wants God wants his
people to have stuff. Yeah, to some degree, I could
probably agree with that, because He certainly wants you to
have to be able to give. Can't give somebody else
(28:06):
you don't have stuff, But what's your motive? Are you
one of those people who Paul's talking about here, who's
worshiping worldly things things? Yeah, God wants you to have stuff,
And I'm sure God wants me to have good transportation.
But does but does God want me to have a bentley?
(28:30):
Does God want me to have a private jet? No?
You got to answer the questions of that. And then
all I do is look at it and say, okay, well,
what are you doing with that Bentley? Is it honoring God?
Or is it simply honoring yourself and making your life
more comfortable? These are the things that we measure ourselves against.
And we got to be mindful about these things. And
(28:51):
people excuse this idea because you know this whole wealth, health,
and prosperity, naming and claiming. God's people are supposed to
have stuff. You know what, Take that gospel over to Rwanda,
go tell the people in the poorest parts of India,
(29:17):
go preach the gospel there and tell them God wants
you to have stuff. See that whole prosperity gospel. I'm
a King's kid. All this, all this wealth, name it
and claiman and all these riches that you're supposed to
have so you can look like the Kingdom of God.
(29:38):
And people go back and talk about the Solomon's Temple,
and David, excuse me, those people were one of one.
They were one of one. Jesus didn't have those things.
They came to Jesus asking about how they were going
to pay their taxes. You know, they coming around collecting taxes. Jesus,
what we're gonna do, homie. Oh, okay, let's take care
(30:03):
of that. Get a hook, throw it out there in
the water and you'll pull up a fish. Look in
his mouth. When you look in his mouth, there'll be
a coin in there. That'll be enough taxes to pay
yours and hours and they try to excuse this idea
that they have this wealth. And you get you going
(30:24):
in there and you get got your first fruits offering,
and Lord wants you to bring your first check of
the year, your first fruits, and come on down and
get get get in the Okay, we got the givers. Okay,
if you want God to bless your life, this is
the five hundred dollar line. Everybody's gonna get five hundred dollars.
You get in this line, and then and then here's
(30:44):
the thousand dollars line, and God is gonna bust you.
And if you really want a significant and you got
a need, there's this five thousand dollars line. These are
for the people. I'm sorry, I've been in the room
when this stuff has happened, y'ah, I'm sorry. The five
(31:05):
thousand dollars line, we're gonna give you in this anointed
handkerchief and you put this up under your pillow, and
there's an extra anointing that's gonna happen, and God getting
ready to do some in your life in the five
thousand dollars line. And man, they explain these things away,
and boy, you get to sounding good and people get
to push in the chairs over and the organizes get
to go on. Damn man, listen, Bro Paul said, don't
(31:31):
be like them, don't be like them. And when people, boy,
especially when they start explaining away sexual immorality. And we've
seen way too many ministers of God fall into this trap.
(31:52):
Your sins have gotten the best of you. I'm mad
at you that you had a fall from grace and
you committed a sexual sin. But you in the pulpit
the same Sunday talking about we're moving forward, and you
(32:12):
refuse to resign or step down or sit down for
a season. We're moving forward. Wait, wait, who is we?
Who is we? The oh and I quote the anointing
and calling of God on my life is more important
(32:34):
than my sin. This church that you're leading in their lives,
their lives are more important than the sin that you
created because obeying your lust, and you should go sit
down and retreat somewhere for a while. This calling that
(32:55):
you have, this anointing that you have, is more important
than that. Where was your anointing when you were running
out of that woman's window when her husband was coming home?
Where was your anointing? Then, false teacher, mister excuser of sins?
Where was your anointing talking about we moving forward? Where
(33:18):
was it? What? No, we were jumping out of that window.
It was you, We need we moving forward? The heck
you doing over somebody house having Bible study with somebody
else's wife in the first place. See, we set ourselves
up for these things, and then when we fall, and
we should just repent and just take our medicine and
(33:40):
go and sit down somewhere until God restores us, and
we have a sure heart of repentance. But because we're
so hardened by our sins and it's fleshly nature that
we have, we begin to excuse these things and make excuses.
Paul says, don't be like them. I don't want that
to be my life, he says in verse six, don't
(34:04):
be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins,
or the anger of God will fall on all who
disobey them. They coming, the God coming for them. And
those of you who are following people like them, you
might not you know, you might not want to be
in a way. You know how you as a kid
(34:25):
when you was a kid and one of your siblings
getting a whooping and Mama and dad start going with
that belt. What happened to everybody else? They gone scattered. Man, listen,
I ain't trying to getting away of that. Shots fired,
we out, He says, Man is coming. They ain't ever
of God is coming. He says, don't participate in the
(34:48):
things these people do. For once you were full of darkness,
but now you have light from the Lord. So live
as people of light. He says. There's a person that
you used to be before that you shouldn't be now.
Me manage you having darkness in your life in the past,
but just right now you should be somebody different and
(35:09):
there should be a difference, just like light is different
than darkness. You do not mistake the two. Paul says,
don't let that be said of you, He says, live
as people of light, verse nine. For this light within
(35:32):
you produces only what is good and right and true.
Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Carefully determine what pleases
the Lord. How do we do that by studying the
scriptures and making sure that what we say it says
(35:53):
is actually what it says. That's why you got your strong,
exhaustive concordance. That's why you you've got your blue letter Bible,
so you can see that the scripture actually does say
what people make it said say. Don't believe everything that
comes out of the pull pit. Study these things for yourself.
There's a whole bunch of church tradition, as churches that's
(36:15):
been established for a long time, got big buildings and
big endowments and big this and big that. Okay, just
make sure that you know, you realize that just because
they have all of that history doesn't mean that everything
that comes out of their mouth or come forward from
their doctrine is pleasing to God. Paul says, search it
(36:38):
and see if these things be so. If you want
to show me that it's a biblical thing to excommunicate
somebody for something, show me in the scriptures. Let everything
be established by two or three witnesses. You can't show
(37:01):
me one place in the scripture where God excommunicated somebody
for that reason. No, one time, maybe maybe you ought
to reconsider it. You can't show me one place in
the scripture where somebody. Oh, I love this part since
(37:25):
we've been talking about false teachers, because he says, he says,
I love this part. He says, carefully determine what pleases
the Lord. That's by studying the scriptures. So let me
give you an example. What just came to my mind.
I remember this passage where people take to mean that
God gives people charge over angels. I'm not praying to
(37:49):
God right now. I command my angels to go forth
and get my stuff. I command my angels to go forth.
And I think it's in the Book of Ephesians where
it says it says, were they not messengers of God
(38:12):
sent for those who preached the gospel? Messengers of God sent?
And they used that passage to mean that we as
believers have the power to command angels. And I had
this interesting debate with a gentleman, and I said, so
(38:36):
it says they were sent for those who minister. Okay,
but it doesn't say who sent them? Would you at
least agree with that. It doesn't say right there, who
sent them? It says they are sent. We you talking
about angels now, were talking about angels? He says, okay,
(38:58):
I agree. It says it and say who sent them?
I said, thank you for being honest. Now, out of
all of this, sixty six books in the Bible, I
need to show to show me. I don't need this.
I don't need to be established by two or three witnesses.
(39:19):
This one right here, Just show me one. Show me
one example where a human being gave an angel a
command and that angel followed it. If you show me
one example, because listen, Paula saying. Now, he says, carefully
determine these things. Lord, don't believe everything that people say.
(39:43):
And they call themselves teachers of Christ. They will lead
you astray and they can behindus. Go get in trouble.
You're gonna mess around and get yours in trouble too.
You can get a whooping two. This is why he says,
carefully determine this stuff and you can do it and
just challenge people. Man, I got a good idea that
I'm working on y'all a Christian faith based debate platform
(40:06):
where every time we get on there or have somebody
that debates with me, maybe we'll get a moderator, maybe
the third person, and we debate ideas. People bring questions,
We debate back and forth, and so believers can tune
in and hear people chop it up in the scriptures.
We're going to debate on a right of just an honest,
(40:27):
non judgmental level, theology, practices, traditions. We dive into all
of it, name it and claim it. All these profits,
women preachers were gonna get into all of that stuff.
I'm excited about it. I got one guy, at least,
there'll be a podcast really soon. He and I did
a podcast talking about it, just initially. You know, some
(40:48):
people don't believe in dinosaurs existed, you know the whole
whether profits are still in effect, you know, whether speaking
in tongues is going away and what that means sans
laying on hands, and whether the miracle still happen. We're
gonna debate all of that stuff in real time and listen,
y'all know me. I'm telling people, y'all better bring y'all
(41:08):
receipts bro, you gonna have to show me in the scriptures.
I ain't taking your word just because Passa has said it.
Mm hmm, Nope, he says, carefully, carefully, determine whether these
things are pleasing to the Lord. It's gonna be good.
(41:31):
I'm looking forward to it. We're gonna chop it up.
You see it coming. I'm excited about it. And so
I just told his brother show me one. Because if
you're saying that, as a believer, that I have the
ability to command an angel, you know how powerful angels are.
(41:53):
The Angel of the Lord showed up on a battlefield.
I think it's send Book of I think it's in
the Book of Exodus, and the Angel of the Lord
raised his sword over the top of a city and
three hundred thousand people died in one day, one day,
(42:16):
one angel one. And you want me to believe that
God and his sovereignty and his great wisdom would give
you power over something that powerful. Listen, I'm with you.
I'm here for it because I got some stuff that
(42:37):
I need to be done too. I mean, hey, listen,
I got some stuff that need to be done. I
could use some angelic power. The only thing I need
is one, give me one example in all of scripture,
because you can have your belief. You can believe that
we can command angels, and you can pray and command
your angels to do it. Go right ahead. All I'm
(42:59):
saying is, it's not biblical if you can't show me
one example, and that passage does not mean what it
means if you can't show me one example where a
human gave an angel in order and that angel obeyed
every interaction with angels. Thy seeing scriptures, they say, I
(43:19):
am I am a messenger of the Lord of Hosts.
He has sent me. He has sent me. I'm still waiting.
He didn't show me. I'm still waiting for the one example.
It's been a minute, good thing. I need't hold my
breath for real, for real. Ephesians Chapter five, verse ten.
(43:43):
Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in
the worthless deeds of evil and darkness. Instead, expose them. Instead,
do what expose them? Expose darkness he gives us. He
gives us a command to do it. See, all of
this is about imitating Christ and being godly people. By
(44:09):
doing what God does. Does God sit back and let
evil happen and just say, oh, I just wait for
the judgment. Or does God expose evil? Does God expose
false teachers? Mm? Hm? Does God exact vengeance? Yes, he
(44:31):
does in his wisdom. Now, if you feel like you
on some vengeance thing, you just need to make sure
you hear them from God, is all I got to say.
I have seen vengeance happen in my life, things that
I labeled as vengeance, but they were things that I
(44:57):
didn't do. There were people who did something wrong to me,
seriously wrong, And the last one that I believe was
vengeance against me. Someone did me wrong, very very wrong,
somebody in a very high position of authority, and that
(45:20):
person died suddenly. Now, obviously I can't prove that that
was God exacting a vengeance on me for what they did.
And what they did was wrong, really wrong, and it
was unjust. But I can look at that and I
(45:41):
can say, well, I can't prove that it happened because
of what happened to me. Boy, you can't prove that
it didn't. And all I'm saying is what I can
prove is that person did me really really really really
really really wrong and they're gone. And so he's saying, listen, y'all.
(46:07):
You gotta you gotta be willing to expose darkness, and
in doing the things of God means to imitate God
and everything that you do, and these are the things
that we have to be willing to do. And there's
(46:28):
sometimes where you might need to confront somebody and expose them.
Maybe there's somebody on your job who is a tyrant,
always run around bullying people. Maybe is God's call for
you to stand up and speak for those who cannot
speak for themselves. Maybe God is calling you to call
that person out for their foolishness and do it in
(46:49):
Jesus' name. You ain't gotta cuss out them, You ain't
gotta yell. Hey man, do you realize how unloving you
are being toward these people. I've seen you do this,
I've seen you do that. I think that behavior is reprehensible.
(47:10):
And here's why. Not only is it reprehensible, but it's
against policy. What are you going to do to change
and how fast are you going to do it? Okay,
Because if I see you do it one more time,
(47:35):
I'm going to report you to the authorities and I
will not stop reporting you until I see justice show
up in your life. For these things that you have done.
And when those people who are around you who don't
have the courage to do what you just did, when
they see you stand up for them, when they see
(47:58):
you be their voice, they will glorify God in you.
And it's possible they can come to Christ and say, hey, man,
thank you for doing that. What gave you the boldness
to be able to do that? I could never do that?
What gave you the boldness? Brother, the Lord, God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob is on my side. He is my father.
(48:20):
I have been adopted into his family because of his
dear son Jesus, and that makes me bold as a
lion would like no more. Yes, I would like to
be more like you. I'd like to be bold. I'd
like to be able to stand up for myself. Great,
(48:41):
let's get together, Let's have lunch and see how we
might walk this road together. You never know what God
is going to do. Man, when you begin to imitate God,
he says, expose them in verse twelve. It's even it
is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly
people do in secret. You know what's going on in
(49:04):
your job. You notice some of the things that they
do behind the building at lunch time, after work, before work.
It's a shame of some of these things that go
on around you verse thirteen. But their evil intentions will
be exposed when the light shines on them. For the
light makes everything visible. This is why it says, awake,
(49:30):
o sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will
give you light. I believe it's time for the body
of Christ to awake and be the light. If Christ
is in you, here is the light of the world.
Then guess what you should be. You should be lighting
up the world. And that person that you were before
(49:52):
Christ should be different. Where you were laughing along with
coarse jokes and sitting back and being quiet when you
see things happen to other people. Now, because Christ is
on the inside of you, you stand up and be
a voice for those people, and you expose darkness. Well,
snitches get stitches, Yeah, Well, God is greater. He took
(50:19):
wounds for me. Shouldn't I take wounds for him? Do
all snitches get stitches? Because with God on my side,
what man shall I fear? When God says I live,
No man says that I'm going to die. It's about
(50:44):
imitating God. And everything that you do. In the beginning,
God said, let there be light. God said, let the
earth bring for this. Let's separate the firmament from the firmament.
Let there be stars and a moon in the sun.
(51:06):
Let there be this. The power of God's words showed
up in the beginning, and therefore our words have power.
What kind of words are you speaking over yourself? And
what kind of power is showing up in your life
because of the words that you speak. We'll talk about
(51:26):
that next time. And imitating God, Paul here listed some
of the behaviors that come along with somebody who is
imitating God and supposed to be being light in the darkness.
And so the next time we meet we'll begin to
practice that in real time. On this podcast, we'll go
(51:49):
through what it looks like and sounds like to be
like God in speaking life over yourself over your situation,
and will contrast the difference between speaking life and this
name and claimate tradition doctrine. I command my angels. Man,
(52:14):
your angel sitting there looking at you like you stupid?
And how you going? When is this your garden guardian angel?
And you commanding? Okay, you command your guardian angel to
go somewhere, and he's supposed to be guarding you. Who
gonna guard you while you're a commanding while your angel
going somewhere to do what you tell him to do.
You sound like a dumb dummy. I command my angels
(52:39):
to go and get this for me, and they go
and get it, and you walk out street? Did it
by that? Get it by that truck that you didn't see?
That that guardian angel would have helped you see had
you not sent the angel away. Man, Come on, bro,
we got to do better. I think we will do
better the more we examine the scriptures and the more
(53:00):
we do our best to imitate Christ. I don't know.
I know I'll never be able to play like for
offa Nadal played. But brother, you're not telling me that
I wasn't able to look on that television and see
what he did and model my game after his, and Brother,
I got championships to show for it because I saw
(53:24):
something great and I said to myself, I am going
to imitate that and would be the God that we
would do the same, believers in Christ, that we would
learn to imitate God and doing a way where our
light shines into darkness and we expose the darkness and
watch the championships come forth. Henry Flowers Powerful Living Outreach Ministries,
(53:55):
I ain't going nowhere of coming back. Hello. Thank you
so much for being with us in this podcast over
the airwaves of YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts.
Thank you so much for being a part. Make sure
to subscribe, turn on notifications, and feel free to share
(54:16):
this information with anyone who you believe could use a
little bit more power in their lives. Speaking of power,
be sure to join us on Sunday mornings as we
gather together in the Cincinnati area at five six one
six Wolfpen, Pleasant Hill Road in Milford, Ohio. We will
(54:38):
be in the upper room at General Dentistry. Ten thirty
am on Sunday mornings is when we gather together. We
have an empowerment session immediately after the broadcast. This is
where the true powerful living is put into practice. If
you want to come together and work work on something
(55:01):
with me, one on one coaching in a group setting,
then you want to be a part of the empowerment sessions.
I cannot tell you how many testimonies and how much
transformation has occurred as a result of these empowerment sessions.
You want to be here the church being the church,
(55:22):
people coming in with their stuff, working on it with me,
using biblical principles and getting real transformation in real time,
so that we ourselves can be empowered. Then we can
be able to go and empower others. My friend, that
is what powerful living is. So you definitely want to
(55:43):
join us in the empowerment sessions in person, and also
you can join us live via zoom and the zoom
information is in the description box. Join us ten thirty
am every Sunday Eastern at her time. Look forward to
seeing you there. Many of you have been asking how
(56:05):
you can give and support Powerful Living ministries. I have
a few options for you. I often go and speak
to our young people who are just living in desperate times.
Not really sure if I would want to be a
young person living in these times with these societal norms
that are just banging banging at the door of their
(56:30):
moral houses and they need help. So the help that
I deliver when I go and speak to these young
people are through powerful testimonial speeches, motivational speeches, whatever you
want to call it, but biblical principles and same things
I deliver in the empowerment sessions and in the podcast
is what I deliver when I speak to colleges and
high schools Now, I often go and speak about what
(56:53):
I wrote in my book, which is titled Board to
Death Five Steps to gear Up and be about that life.
This is a pulling together of personal stories, things that
I have lived through and how I went from where
I was living on the streets of Detroit, and how
(57:14):
I survived the streets of Detroit and created a life
that I love. When I had all of the obstacles
in my way, I had the perfect recipe to become
a statistic How did I overcome? What did I do well?
Those questions are answered in my book Bored to Death
and five Easy Steps. I share these steps with young
(57:37):
people and I get transformation, and I see transformation. Their
lives are empowered on a daily basis. This is powerful
Living in action when I go and speak to these
young people. Now, how you can come alongside is a
couple of ways. You can obviously give directly to this ministry.
If you want to reach out to us Powerful Living
(57:57):
twenty twenty two at gmail dot com. You can reach
out to us directly and just say hey, Henry how
can I support your ministry financially. Also you can text
us or call, but likely a text would be better
at five one, three, four, zero, four, seven seven nine three,
(58:19):
leave us a message and just tell us I'd like
to be involved financially. How can I support your ministry
and we'll give back to you there as well. Also,
you can contact us about purchasing copies of my book
so that when I go and speak to the young
people in high school. Sometimes I'll do middle schools, but
most of the time it's high school and college and
(58:41):
those who are usually financially constrained and don't have the
opportunity to purchase my book. If you purchase my book,
every book that you purchase will be an opportunity for
me to put another one copy of my books in
the hands of our young people, and so they can
take home the message that I deliver in person, and
(59:02):
they can be empowered and study and see what I
did to create a life that I love, and therefore
they'll be able to see themselves doing it as well.
That's powerful living, and my friend, that is powerful giving.
And I hope you will take us up on that opportunity.
(59:23):
If you have feedback and you'd like to suggest a
shell topic, content ideas, if you have questions, if I
said something that you don't agree with, whatever it is,
whatever kind of feedback that you'd like to give, bring it.
You can email us Powerful Living twenty twenty two at
(59:45):
gmail dot com. You can call us at five Poine
three or a Zeroport seven seventy nine three. However you
get your information to us, just understand I will respond
to you directly. I am open questions, concerns, show ideas, topics,
anything you have in reference to feedback. You let me
(01:00:08):
know and especially tell us how this ministry has powerfully
impacted your life, and I will likely share that on
a live broadcast. Thank you so much for being a
part of this ministry. I can't wait to see these
empowerment sessions pop up all over the country, all over
(01:00:29):
the world, and all over the lives of people. Powerful
Living is there for you and me. Thank you, my friends,
God bless you.
Hell, old friend, Henry Flowers. Here, powerful living outreach ministries
coming at you once again over the YouTube air waves.
Happy to get involved and dive into the Word of
God this morning. If you have Ephesians chapter five, we
are going to jump in this morning in this realm
(00:28):
of powerful living. There's an opportunity for us to be
a pretender an imitator. It says that we have the
opportunity to imitate God, and we'll dove into that and
see what that looks like today. You know, we do
that though. As human beings. We just imitate stuff. You know,
(00:48):
a lot of the idiosyncrasies that you have, stuff that
you say, habits that you have, jokes that you tell,
little sly remarks, little ways that you about yourself. Most
of the time you have gotten those from somebody. You like,
somebody you think highly of something you've seen before, You've
(01:11):
seen something done by somebody, and you want to do it,
and we imitate it. So many Let's take if we
just take the world of sports. Just for so many years,
I just didn't know about the game of tennis. I
wasn't exposed to it. I mean I had seen tennis
(01:32):
rackets before I had even gone out. I can remember
just back in the day when my sisters and I
were just young, maybe teenagers. But we go over to
Auntie's house and she'd have a couple of tennis rackets
and some tennis balls, and we go out there and
hit balls and whack hit it over the fence and
you know, chase balls in That lasts for about five
(01:54):
minutes til we get sick of each other hitting balls
over the fence and we just move on to something else. Man,
something happened to me at I guess when I was
thirty years old. Something happened that changed all of that.
When all of those times where I used to play
tennis before, man, I took that thing to a whole
(02:17):
nother level when I turned on a TV and saw
Raphael Nadal played tennis. I think he was playing against
Roger Federer, and there was an interview about him and
he talked about him playing left handed. And I actually
(02:41):
didn't realize this until later on, but Raphael Nadal from
Spain one of the great tennis players of all time.
Some people think he's the greatest, definitely well beloved. This
guy is right handed, but learn how to play tennis
(03:01):
left handed because he wanted the advantage. And so here
I am at thirty six years old, and I started
playing tennis and I saw him, and I'm naturally left handed,
and I was like, wait a minute, what is this
advantage that lefties have? And so I started doing research
(03:25):
into that and started learning about that. But man, from
then on, it was tennis all day long. I still
played some basketball, but it was tennis because of what
I saw. I saw Rafa and o'damond the way he played. Man,
I wanted to play like Rafa, left handed man, spin
(03:45):
that ball, take advantage of the lefty advantage. And then
William's sisters were on the scene. I was like, man,
these two black sisters taking over running things. Oh man,
let's go. Man, and I go out there watch a
tennis match and then get out there on that court
and try to imitate what I saw. And this was
(04:09):
beginning tennis. And brother, you couldn't tell me in my mind.
In my mind, you couldn't tell me that I was
not doing on that tennis court what Raeford was doing
on that television. You couldn't tell me. But as time progressed,
I wanted to improve my game and get better and
actually started returning more than one or two shots, you know,
and actually possibly start winning some matches. So in order
(04:32):
to do that, I started recording myself. Got my little
camera out there in my little tripod, and I started
recording myself, especially when it came to the serve, because
I wanted to have a really, really powerful I wanted
to have a pro level serve. I didn't want to
just make up something just get the points started. No, man,
I wanted to have a pro level weapon of a serve.
(04:55):
And man, did reality show up when I grabbed that
camera and looked at the footage that I had recorded,
and I saw myself, Oh god, who.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
When I replayed that video of me playing, and in
my mind, I was roughing the doll and on that video,
I was everything.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Except we'll just put it like that I had a
long way to go. But that video told everything. That
video was telling me that I had a long way
to go before I was doing anything that looked like
what Rafa was doing on that court. And I'm talking
(05:54):
about I'm not talking about the physicality. No, we all
know they are athletes and we are not. Okay, they are.
They just different people. But I'm just talking about being
able to learn the techniques and the style, the form,
it's the footwork. You can do those things. Man, that
(06:17):
video told the whole story. Video said to me, Henry,
you are not imitating Rafael Nadal. It might be some
Raphael out there that you are imitating, but it ain't
Raphael Nadal. But I worked on my game and worked
on my game, and I kept watching Rafa and I
(06:40):
kept getting in front of that camera, and before you
know it, I fell in love with this game. Fifty
one years old. Now I've been playing this game for
that long. What are that seventeen years? Thirty six to
fifty one, sixteen years going on seventeen, I think, and
brother got championships. I got championships. Loved this game because
(07:04):
I've watched somebody do something and I said, wow, I
want to do that. Got championships. So I have the
two thousand and twenty three Greater Cincinnati Inner Club Tennis
(07:32):
Association Mixed Doubles Championship, back to back seasons, undefeated. Yep,
that's me. So if you look up in the books
the gci TA Championships of twenty twenty three, you'll see
(07:58):
my name in there forever, I'm pretty proud of it.
You know, listen, how many championships do we have? I
don't know how many championships you have? How many do
you have? Zoomers, anybody out there got championships? I don't know.
If you ever win a championship at something, you will
(08:19):
honor and treasure that because you start competing against people
who have the same goals, same aspirations as you, same drive,
some of them have the same skill. And you get
out on that field of competition and you wage battle
with each other to see who wins the prize. Man,
(08:40):
you'll find out, is one thing to win a championship.
But there's a reason not everybody has one. M Something
occurred to me when I watched Ralph and Addell said,
I want to imitate that. So in this realm of
(09:01):
powerful living, we're talking about creating a life that we love.
You know, there are things that you must do, and
that's I always love to tell people. You know, I
love church. I'll never go away from church. The way
it shows up, gathering together in a building with fellow believers,
(09:27):
hearing the word of God, singing songs to worship God.
You know, the communion, take up the offering, laying on
of hands, all the things that come along with the
traditional church services. Those things are all great, and I'll
(09:50):
never walk away from those things. But in this expression,
we have a different of church to where we focus
on putting powerful living into action, and we focus on
the how tos, the things about our faith where we
(10:13):
can practice being like Christ, doing the work of Christ,
being his hands and feet. The outreach, the meeting your neighbor,
the prayer, the reading the Bible, all these things that
are actually by products, supposed to be byproducts of people
(10:35):
who say that I am in Christ. Those are the
things that we focus on on our Sunday expression. So
these are how to's, practical ways that we learn how
to more and more be like Christ. And so when
we gather together on Sunday mornings, I'll deliver this podcast
(10:58):
for about thirty minutes forty minutes however long I speak,
and then after that we go into what we call
empowerment sessions. And those empowerment sessions are like all of
those times where I was out there on the tennis
court practicing, working on my game, had the camera out
there because I wanted to see what my serve looked like.
I wanted to see if I was actually tossing the
(11:20):
ball the way I thought I was. I wanted to
see if I was actually turning my shoulders. On the forehand,
I wanted to see. I want to see you. I
want to see I wanted to practice because I wanted
to get better, and I got better got championships as
a result. And so we want to get some championships
for Jesus. And so when we gather together on Sunday mornings, man,
we practice in this thing. In our empowerment sessions. People
(11:41):
aren't afraid to share their struggles, share their weaknesses, reveal
the flaws in their game. And I'll reveal some of
mind today as we delve into Ephesians chapter five, and
paul Is writ into the church at Ephesus, showing them
what it looks like to imitate Christ, because that should
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be the game for everybody who says, I love Jesus,
the God of Jehovah, the Lord God of the God.
His name is Jehovah, the Lord God of Jacob, Isaac
and Israel. I'm a descendant of his. I've been grafted
into Abraham's blessing and Abraham's promise because I said yes
(12:24):
to Jesus. Those are the people that I'm talking to.
You should have some victories in his name. You read
the Old Testament and the people the Syrian army and
these other people. They say, oh, that's those children of Israel.
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Oh hey, hey, listen, y'all, don't mess with them. Those
people their God is with them, y'all. Listen, these people different.
Y'all might want to think about it before y'all go
to war with them. Their God is with them. Okay,
we worship gods and we have these idols and stuff,
(13:06):
but just understand these people right here, those children of Israel,
that they different. Their God is with them. Man would
to God that someone would say that about me on
this earth. Oh you know that guy, Henry, Oh, Henry Flowers. Yeah,
(13:27):
like that guy. He's a good tennis player, man, and
God is with him. That dude is the real deal. Yeah.
So all that time working on my game, trying to
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be a better tennis player, and those are the things
that we want to model here at Powerful Living Ministries.
We want to put it into practice and take a
look at what we're doing, and take a look at
what we're not doing, and work on these things. Because
this is this is the real deal, y'all. You know
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God is you know, God is imminent. He he is approaching,
He is on the way. Judgment is coming and everyone
will be judged. No one will escape and will stand
before the Almighty God Jehovah Yahweh. Will get in front
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of him and give account of our lives and the
things that we have done or not done. That's real
for me, and I want it to be real for you.
And that's why we do these things. That's why we
gather together. That's why we constantly are working on our
stuff to make sure that one day we'll be able
to give a count we They say, yep, Lord, you
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know what I preach, the Gospel, shared your word with people,
and this person is in the body of Christ because
of my work in their life. Yep. These are the
amount of hours that I've volunteered helping those who needed help.
These are the many times where I've spoken for those
(15:17):
who could not speak for themselves. These are the times.
This is it, this is it. We'll give account, that's
what it says, even says to a more minute degree,
he says, we'll give an account for every idle word
that proceeds out of our mouths. Now that part is
scary to me, because sometimes my mouth gonna get pretty idle,
and I don't like it. You have Ephesians chapter five.
(15:46):
Here's the apostle Paul writing to the church at Ephesus.
Ephesians chapter five, Verse one. We'll start, let's read together.
I'll read from the New Living Translation. Imitate God therefore
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in everything you do, because you are His dear children.
That's because I love that he just made that first
sentence really plain. He threw out an idea, and he
gave you the reason why. He says, because you are
his dear, dear children, imitate him. What was that story
(16:29):
your mom was telling yesterday about the family member and
he was traveling somewhere and he goes into this hotel
or something, and the people at the hotel looked at
him and say, you look like so and so right,
(16:50):
and they're like, what what do you? Oh? Thank you.
I appreciate that. You know. He thought they was just
giving him a coming. And they're like no, no, wow,
like you really look like so. You need to meet
this guy and say they go back and get this
guy and he comes up and looks at him. The
dudes looking into the face of his father, who was
(17:13):
absentee and had left years ago. He looked like him.
It was unmistakable to everybody, to the point where they said,
good Lord, let me go get him. Let me show
you how much you look like him. And it turns
out he was him, He was his seed. Awkward boy
(17:36):
would to God? Did somebody could look at me and say, man,
you look like Jesus? What if they could look at
my life and say, this dude looks like Jesus. All right?
Imitate God therefore and everything you do, because you are
his dear children. If you are his children, you should
look like him. That's pretty plain right. In verse two,
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he says, live a life filled with love, following the
example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as
a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. Let
there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you.
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Such sins have no place among God's people. He says,
y'all shouldn't be like that. You should be different behavior
coming from the people of God is what Paul is saying.
And we've talked about this many times, especially recently here
in the past saying about God's children should be different.
We should be different. And here's Paul declaring it again
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to another church. He's saying, listen, let there be no
sexual immorality. Our sex lives should be different than folks
who don't believe in God. The way we approach our
sexuality should be different. He said, it shouldn't be immoral.
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Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity. We should be
pure in all things. In our motives and the things
that we go after. There should be pure motives and
the things that we go after, the way we work,
the way we gain money. There should be purity in
our lives. And then he comes along. He says, or
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greed among you, believers in Jesus Christ should not be greedy.
You should not be grabbing a hold of as much
material things as you can to the point where you
have excess and it causes someone else to lack. That's
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what greed is. That's what greed looks like. You've grabbed
a hold of a substance of things, something valuable, food,
and you've grabbed more than you can actually consume for yourself,
and it caused somebody else to go without. He says, No,
(20:13):
we shouldn't be greedy. Such sins have no place among
God's people. Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes, these
are not for you. I really got to work on
that because I can admit sometimes you know, it's never
(20:34):
gonna happen professionally. I'm never gonna have course talk, foolish talk,
obscene jokes. That's never gonna happen professionally. I've been doing
this too long to let my curse word slip or
something like that. Curse words don't slip. That don't slip.
You know what you said, and you knew you was
gonna say it before you said it. That doesn't happen.
(20:56):
That's never gonna happen for me professional. I'm never gonna
do it from the pulpit because number one, it's not right,
and number two, because I spend a lot of time
calling people out for it. M M. There's no way
I'm gonna be There's no way I'm gonna be on
my podcast calling out false teachers. And you know, there's
been some talk recently about this one lady. She tends
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to curse during her messages and use course languages and
you know, use derogatory term for the human anatomy and
that kind of stuff and all these street terms that
she used right there from the poolpit, and she's been
called out. I've called her out, people calling her out
and all these kind of things, because there's there are
people of God are saying, hey, there's the standard that
we should be living up to. And part of learning
(21:44):
what's right is pointing out what's wrong. So if anybody
out there is coming at believers for you call them
trash talking to other believers, ain't we on the same set?
Are y'all coming after her for this blah blah blah
blah blah. No miss me with that stuff, and y'all
(22:05):
sound like hypocrites. Don't stop that. Stop that. We've been
called to rebuke and to correct. And part of teaching
the gospel is, yes, teaching what is right, but it
also is teaching what is wrong. So if somebody is
standing in god stead and is ministering the word of God,
they ought to be falling up under this thing that
(22:28):
the apostle Paul is talking about. No obscene stories, foolish talk,
or coarse jokes. That's why we call people out online.
That's why we call out false teachers. False doctrine, people
who manipulate money from people, people who are sexually immoral,
(22:49):
and you represent in Christ. Yep, We're gonna call you
out every time because this is what Paul is doing.
We gotta do those four things things. Remember the four
things that I told you that the Bible does. There's
four things that the Bible reveals. Here we go what's right,
what's wrong? How to get right, and how to stay right.
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And when we say right, just understand righteous. Okay, what's righteous?
What's evil? How to get right and how to stay righteous.
Those are four things that the Bible exposes no matter
where you eat, and that's the standard. That's who we
are supposed to be. And this is what's Paul is
(23:36):
saying to us here he says, so obsceeing stories and
verse four, obseeing stories, foolish talking, coarse joke, these are
not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God.
You can be sure that no immoral, impure or greedy
person will inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God.
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For a greed person is an adult worshiping the things
of this world. Now, this is what is coming down to,
because we got to understand it's gonna be a sad
day that you do all of the work that comes
along with living for Christ. You do all of that work,
(24:20):
and then on the day of judgment, God says, depart
from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.
He says, there's no relationship. God forbid that I be
one of those people who have a form of godliness.
But deny the power thereof. There's a lot of scripture
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that speaks to that idea, these people who have a
form of godliness tradition, in God's word or God's teachings.
You are a church goer, you know the scriptures. You
even do some benevolent things to help people. You have
a way of Godliness about you. But he says you
(25:09):
deny the power thereof. He says, you have a way
of godliness, but there's power that's lacking in your life,
power that's designed to deliver other people. Every time God
showed up with power, it was to meet a need
for somebody else. Every miracle that Jesus did in the
Bible that's reading about it was to meet a need
for somebody else. To help somebody's life get better, help
(25:31):
them come to the knowledge of something. If it was
the knowledge of Him or the knowledge of something that
they needed right all in these things, God shows up
with power in order to deliver people. There's not just
some flashy thing he did to make you think he's awesome.
And when we show up with power in people's lives,
it should be something that benefits them. And those are
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the things that we practice in powerful living ministries, going around,
meet your neighbor, learning how to have opportunities to volunteer. Listen,
there's gonna be a time where you deny yourself to
help someone else. He says, No greedy person shall inherit
the kingdom of God. Is what Paul just said. He says,
(26:18):
do the opposite of that for a greedy person as
an idolatry worshiping the things of this world. Now here
we go verse six. This is really interesting because Paul
digs in and goes another level deeper when he says,
(26:39):
don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins,
for the anger of God will fall on all who
disobey him. Don't be fooled by those who try to
excuse these sins. You know who I'm talking about. See this,
I love I just love how the Bible is just
real and relevant. And I don't believe people who refer
(27:01):
to the scriptures as archaic and old and all this
kind of stuff. They are not reading the scriptures. Tell
me people today are not trying to excuse sins. Tell
me that's not happening today. Oh, people don't do Oh,
people don't make excuses. People don't uh people who let's
(27:23):
let's let's take the Word of Faith movement. Well, you
can just speak the word of God and you can
hold him at his word and old God's feet to
the fire. And I'm claiming my stuff in Jesus name,
and God has to give me my stuff. I've decreed
(27:45):
and declare it. I want my stuff. Come on, man, Well,
I'm a king's kid and God wants God wants his
people to have stuff. Yeah, to some degree, I could
probably agree with that, because He certainly wants you to
have to be able to give. Can't give somebody else
(28:06):
you don't have stuff, But what's your motive? Are you
one of those people who Paul's talking about here, who's
worshiping worldly things things? Yeah, God wants you to have stuff,
And I'm sure God wants me to have good transportation.
But does but does God want me to have a bentley?
(28:30):
Does God want me to have a private jet? No?
You got to answer the questions of that. And then
all I do is look at it and say, okay, well,
what are you doing with that Bentley? Is it honoring God?
Or is it simply honoring yourself and making your life
more comfortable? These are the things that we measure ourselves against.
And we got to be mindful about these things. And
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people excuse this idea because you know this whole wealth, health,
and prosperity, naming and claiming. God's people are supposed to
have stuff. You know what, Take that gospel over to Rwanda,
go tell the people in the poorest parts of India,
(29:17):
go preach the gospel there and tell them God wants
you to have stuff. See that whole prosperity gospel. I'm
a King's kid. All this, all this wealth, name it
and claiman and all these riches that you're supposed to
have so you can look like the Kingdom of God.
(29:38):
And people go back and talk about the Solomon's Temple,
and David, excuse me, those people were one of one.
They were one of one. Jesus didn't have those things.
They came to Jesus asking about how they were going
to pay their taxes. You know, they coming around collecting taxes. Jesus,
what we're gonna do, homie. Oh, okay, let's take care
(30:03):
of that. Get a hook, throw it out there in
the water and you'll pull up a fish. Look in
his mouth. When you look in his mouth, there'll be
a coin in there. That'll be enough taxes to pay
yours and hours and they try to excuse this idea
that they have this wealth. And you get you going
(30:24):
in there and you get got your first fruits offering,
and Lord wants you to bring your first check of
the year, your first fruits, and come on down and
get get get in the Okay, we got the givers. Okay,
if you want God to bless your life, this is
the five hundred dollar line. Everybody's gonna get five hundred dollars.
You get in this line, and then and then here's
(30:44):
the thousand dollars line, and God is gonna bust you.
And if you really want a significant and you got
a need, there's this five thousand dollars line. These are
for the people. I'm sorry, I've been in the room
when this stuff has happened, y'ah, I'm sorry. The five
(31:05):
thousand dollars line, we're gonna give you in this anointed
handkerchief and you put this up under your pillow, and
there's an extra anointing that's gonna happen, and God getting
ready to do some in your life in the five
thousand dollars line. And man, they explain these things away,
and boy, you get to sounding good and people get
to push in the chairs over and the organizes get
to go on. Damn man, listen, Bro Paul said, don't
(31:31):
be like them, don't be like them. And when people, boy,
especially when they start explaining away sexual immorality. And we've
seen way too many ministers of God fall into this trap.
(31:52):
Your sins have gotten the best of you. I'm mad
at you that you had a fall from grace and
you committed a sexual sin. But you in the pulpit
the same Sunday talking about we're moving forward, and you
(32:12):
refuse to resign or step down or sit down for
a season. We're moving forward. Wait, wait, who is we?
Who is we? The oh and I quote the anointing
and calling of God on my life is more important
(32:34):
than my sin. This church that you're leading in their lives,
their lives are more important than the sin that you
created because obeying your lust, and you should go sit
down and retreat somewhere for a while. This calling that
(32:55):
you have, this anointing that you have, is more important
than that. Where was your anointing when you were running
out of that woman's window when her husband was coming home?
Where was your anointing? Then, false teacher, mister excuser of sins?
Where was your anointing talking about we moving forward? Where
(33:18):
was it? What? No, we were jumping out of that window.
It was you, We need we moving forward? The heck
you doing over somebody house having Bible study with somebody
else's wife in the first place. See, we set ourselves
up for these things, and then when we fall, and
we should just repent and just take our medicine and
(33:40):
go and sit down somewhere until God restores us, and
we have a sure heart of repentance. But because we're
so hardened by our sins and it's fleshly nature that
we have, we begin to excuse these things and make excuses.
Paul says, don't be like them. I don't want that
to be my life, he says in verse six, don't
(34:04):
be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins,
or the anger of God will fall on all who
disobey them. They coming, the God coming for them. And
those of you who are following people like them, you
might not you know, you might not want to be
in a way. You know how you as a kid
(34:25):
when you was a kid and one of your siblings
getting a whooping and Mama and dad start going with
that belt. What happened to everybody else? They gone scattered. Man, listen,
I ain't trying to getting away of that. Shots fired,
we out, He says, Man is coming. They ain't ever
of God is coming. He says, don't participate in the
(34:48):
things these people do. For once you were full of darkness,
but now you have light from the Lord. So live
as people of light. He says. There's a person that
you used to be before that you shouldn't be now.
Me manage you having darkness in your life in the past,
but just right now you should be somebody different and
(35:09):
there should be a difference, just like light is different
than darkness. You do not mistake the two. Paul says,
don't let that be said of you, He says, live
as people of light, verse nine. For this light within
(35:32):
you produces only what is good and right and true.
Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Carefully determine what pleases
the Lord. How do we do that by studying the
scriptures and making sure that what we say it says
(35:53):
is actually what it says. That's why you got your strong,
exhaustive concordance. That's why you you've got your blue letter Bible,
so you can see that the scripture actually does say
what people make it said say. Don't believe everything that
comes out of the pull pit. Study these things for yourself.
There's a whole bunch of church tradition, as churches that's
(36:15):
been established for a long time, got big buildings and
big endowments and big this and big that. Okay, just
make sure that you know, you realize that just because
they have all of that history doesn't mean that everything
that comes out of their mouth or come forward from
their doctrine is pleasing to God. Paul says, search it
(36:38):
and see if these things be so. If you want
to show me that it's a biblical thing to excommunicate
somebody for something, show me in the scriptures. Let everything
be established by two or three witnesses. You can't show
(37:01):
me one place in the scripture where God excommunicated somebody
for that reason. No, one time, maybe maybe you ought
to reconsider it. You can't show me one place in
the scripture where somebody. Oh, I love this part since
(37:25):
we've been talking about false teachers, because he says, he says,
I love this part. He says, carefully determine what pleases
the Lord. That's by studying the scriptures. So let me
give you an example. What just came to my mind.
I remember this passage where people take to mean that
God gives people charge over angels. I'm not praying to
(37:49):
God right now. I command my angels to go forth
and get my stuff. I command my angels to go forth.
And I think it's in the Book of Ephesians where
it says it says, were they not messengers of God
(38:12):
sent for those who preached the gospel? Messengers of God sent?
And they used that passage to mean that we as
believers have the power to command angels. And I had
this interesting debate with a gentleman, and I said, so
(38:36):
it says they were sent for those who minister. Okay,
but it doesn't say who sent them? Would you at
least agree with that. It doesn't say right there, who
sent them? It says they are sent. We you talking
about angels now, were talking about angels? He says, okay,
(38:58):
I agree. It says it and say who sent them?
I said, thank you for being honest. Now, out of
all of this, sixty six books in the Bible, I
need to show to show me. I don't need this.
I don't need to be established by two or three witnesses.
(39:19):
This one right here, Just show me one. Show me
one example where a human being gave an angel a
command and that angel followed it. If you show me
one example, because listen, Paula saying. Now, he says, carefully
determine these things. Lord, don't believe everything that people say.
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And they call themselves teachers of Christ. They will lead
you astray and they can behindus. Go get in trouble.
You're gonna mess around and get yours in trouble too.
You can get a whooping two. This is why he says,
carefully determine this stuff and you can do it and
just challenge people. Man, I got a good idea that
I'm working on y'all a Christian faith based debate platform
(40:06):
where every time we get on there or have somebody
that debates with me, maybe we'll get a moderator, maybe
the third person, and we debate ideas. People bring questions,
We debate back and forth, and so believers can tune
in and hear people chop it up in the scriptures.
We're going to debate on a right of just an honest,
(40:27):
non judgmental level, theology, practices, traditions. We dive into all
of it, name it and claim it. All these profits,
women preachers were gonna get into all of that stuff.
I'm excited about it. I got one guy, at least,
there'll be a podcast really soon. He and I did
a podcast talking about it, just initially. You know, some
(40:48):
people don't believe in dinosaurs existed, you know the whole
whether profits are still in effect, you know, whether speaking
in tongues is going away and what that means sans
laying on hands, and whether the miracle still happen. We're
gonna debate all of that stuff in real time and listen,
y'all know me. I'm telling people, y'all better bring y'all
(41:08):
receipts bro, you gonna have to show me in the scriptures.
I ain't taking your word just because Passa has said it.
Mm hmm, Nope, he says, carefully, carefully, determine whether these
things are pleasing to the Lord. It's gonna be good.
(41:31):
I'm looking forward to it. We're gonna chop it up.
You see it coming. I'm excited about it. And so
I just told his brother show me one. Because if
you're saying that, as a believer, that I have the
ability to command an angel, you know how powerful angels are.
(41:53):
The Angel of the Lord showed up on a battlefield.
I think it's send Book of I think it's in
the Book of Exodus, and the Angel of the Lord
raised his sword over the top of a city and
three hundred thousand people died in one day, one day,
(42:16):
one angel one. And you want me to believe that
God and his sovereignty and his great wisdom would give
you power over something that powerful. Listen, I'm with you.
I'm here for it because I got some stuff that
(42:37):
I need to be done too. I mean, hey, listen,
I got some stuff that need to be done. I
could use some angelic power. The only thing I need
is one, give me one example in all of scripture,
because you can have your belief. You can believe that
we can command angels, and you can pray and command
your angels to do it. Go right ahead. All I'm
(42:59):
saying is, it's not biblical if you can't show me
one example, and that passage does not mean what it
means if you can't show me one example where a
human gave an angel in order and that angel obeyed
every interaction with angels. Thy seeing scriptures, they say, I
(43:19):
am I am a messenger of the Lord of Hosts.
He has sent me. He has sent me. I'm still waiting.
He didn't show me. I'm still waiting for the one example.
It's been a minute, good thing. I need't hold my
breath for real, for real. Ephesians Chapter five, verse ten.
(43:43):
Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in
the worthless deeds of evil and darkness. Instead, expose them. Instead,
do what expose them? Expose darkness he gives us. He
gives us a command to do it. See, all of
this is about imitating Christ and being godly people. By
(44:09):
doing what God does. Does God sit back and let
evil happen and just say, oh, I just wait for
the judgment. Or does God expose evil? Does God expose
false teachers? Mm? Hm? Does God exact vengeance? Yes, he
(44:31):
does in his wisdom. Now, if you feel like you
on some vengeance thing, you just need to make sure
you hear them from God, is all I got to say.
I have seen vengeance happen in my life, things that
I labeled as vengeance, but they were things that I
(44:57):
didn't do. There were people who did something wrong to me,
seriously wrong, And the last one that I believe was
vengeance against me. Someone did me wrong, very very wrong,
somebody in a very high position of authority, and that
(45:20):
person died suddenly. Now, obviously I can't prove that that
was God exacting a vengeance on me for what they did.
And what they did was wrong, really wrong, and it
was unjust. But I can look at that and I
(45:41):
can say, well, I can't prove that it happened because
of what happened to me. Boy, you can't prove that
it didn't. And all I'm saying is what I can
prove is that person did me really really really really
really really wrong and they're gone. And so he's saying, listen, y'all.
(46:07):
You gotta you gotta be willing to expose darkness, and
in doing the things of God means to imitate God
and everything that you do, and these are the things
that we have to be willing to do. And there's
(46:28):
sometimes where you might need to confront somebody and expose them.
Maybe there's somebody on your job who is a tyrant,
always run around bullying people. Maybe is God's call for
you to stand up and speak for those who cannot
speak for themselves. Maybe God is calling you to call
that person out for their foolishness and do it in
(46:49):
Jesus' name. You ain't gotta cuss out them, You ain't
gotta yell. Hey man, do you realize how unloving you
are being toward these people. I've seen you do this,
I've seen you do that. I think that behavior is reprehensible.
(47:10):
And here's why. Not only is it reprehensible, but it's
against policy. What are you going to do to change
and how fast are you going to do it? Okay,
Because if I see you do it one more time,
(47:35):
I'm going to report you to the authorities and I
will not stop reporting you until I see justice show
up in your life. For these things that you have done.
And when those people who are around you who don't
have the courage to do what you just did, when
they see you stand up for them, when they see
(47:58):
you be their voice, they will glorify God in you.
And it's possible they can come to Christ and say, hey, man,
thank you for doing that. What gave you the boldness
to be able to do that? I could never do that?
What gave you the boldness? Brother, the Lord, God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob is on my side. He is my father.
(48:20):
I have been adopted into his family because of his
dear son Jesus, and that makes me bold as a
lion would like no more. Yes, I would like to
be more like you. I'd like to be bold. I'd
like to be able to stand up for myself. Great,
(48:41):
let's get together, Let's have lunch and see how we
might walk this road together. You never know what God
is going to do. Man, when you begin to imitate God,
he says, expose them in verse twelve. It's even it
is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly
people do in secret. You know what's going on in
(49:04):
your job. You notice some of the things that they
do behind the building at lunch time, after work, before work.
It's a shame of some of these things that go
on around you verse thirteen. But their evil intentions will
be exposed when the light shines on them. For the
light makes everything visible. This is why it says, awake,
(49:30):
o sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will
give you light. I believe it's time for the body
of Christ to awake and be the light. If Christ
is in you, here is the light of the world.
Then guess what you should be. You should be lighting
up the world. And that person that you were before
(49:52):
Christ should be different. Where you were laughing along with
coarse jokes and sitting back and being quiet when you
see things happen to other people. Now, because Christ is
on the inside of you, you stand up and be
a voice for those people, and you expose darkness. Well,
snitches get stitches, Yeah, Well, God is greater. He took
(50:19):
wounds for me. Shouldn't I take wounds for him? Do
all snitches get stitches? Because with God on my side,
what man shall I fear? When God says I live,
No man says that I'm going to die. It's about
(50:44):
imitating God. And everything that you do. In the beginning,
God said, let there be light. God said, let the
earth bring for this. Let's separate the firmament from the firmament.
Let there be stars and a moon in the sun.
(51:06):
Let there be this. The power of God's words showed
up in the beginning, and therefore our words have power.
What kind of words are you speaking over yourself? And
what kind of power is showing up in your life
because of the words that you speak. We'll talk about
(51:26):
that next time. And imitating God, Paul here listed some
of the behaviors that come along with somebody who is
imitating God and supposed to be being light in the darkness.
And so the next time we meet we'll begin to
practice that in real time. On this podcast, we'll go
(51:49):
through what it looks like and sounds like to be
like God in speaking life over yourself over your situation,
and will contrast the difference between speaking life and this
name and claimate tradition doctrine. I command my angels. Man,
(52:14):
your angel sitting there looking at you like you stupid?
And how you going? When is this your garden guardian angel?
And you commanding? Okay, you command your guardian angel to
go somewhere, and he's supposed to be guarding you. Who
gonna guard you while you're a commanding while your angel
going somewhere to do what you tell him to do.
You sound like a dumb dummy. I command my angels
(52:39):
to go and get this for me, and they go
and get it, and you walk out street? Did it
by that? Get it by that truck that you didn't see?
That that guardian angel would have helped you see had
you not sent the angel away. Man, Come on, bro,
we got to do better. I think we will do
better the more we examine the scriptures and the more
(53:00):
we do our best to imitate Christ. I don't know.
I know I'll never be able to play like for
offa Nadal played. But brother, you're not telling me that
I wasn't able to look on that television and see
what he did and model my game after his, and Brother,
I got championships to show for it because I saw
(53:24):
something great and I said to myself, I am going
to imitate that and would be the God that we
would do the same, believers in Christ, that we would
learn to imitate God and doing a way where our
light shines into darkness and we expose the darkness and
watch the championships come forth. Henry Flowers Powerful Living Outreach Ministries,
(53:55):
I ain't going nowhere of coming back. Hello. Thank you
so much for being with us in this podcast over
the airwaves of YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts.
Thank you so much for being a part. Make sure
to subscribe, turn on notifications, and feel free to share
(54:16):
this information with anyone who you believe could use a
little bit more power in their lives. Speaking of power,
be sure to join us on Sunday mornings as we
gather together in the Cincinnati area at five six one
six Wolfpen, Pleasant Hill Road in Milford, Ohio. We will
(54:38):
be in the upper room at General Dentistry. Ten thirty
am on Sunday mornings is when we gather together. We
have an empowerment session immediately after the broadcast. This is
where the true powerful living is put into practice. If
you want to come together and work work on something
(55:01):
with me, one on one coaching in a group setting,
then you want to be a part of the empowerment sessions.
I cannot tell you how many testimonies and how much
transformation has occurred as a result of these empowerment sessions.
You want to be here the church being the church,
(55:22):
people coming in with their stuff, working on it with me,
using biblical principles and getting real transformation in real time,
so that we ourselves can be empowered. Then we can
be able to go and empower others. My friend, that
is what powerful living is. So you definitely want to
(55:43):
join us in the empowerment sessions in person, and also
you can join us live via zoom and the zoom
information is in the description box. Join us ten thirty
am every Sunday Eastern at her time. Look forward to
seeing you there. Many of you have been asking how
(56:05):
you can give and support Powerful Living ministries. I have
a few options for you. I often go and speak
to our young people who are just living in desperate times.
Not really sure if I would want to be a
young person living in these times with these societal norms
that are just banging banging at the door of their
(56:30):
moral houses and they need help. So the help that
I deliver when I go and speak to these young
people are through powerful testimonial speeches, motivational speeches, whatever you
want to call it, but biblical principles and same things
I deliver in the empowerment sessions and in the podcast
is what I deliver when I speak to colleges and
high schools Now, I often go and speak about what
(56:53):
I wrote in my book, which is titled Board to
Death Five Steps to gear Up and be about that life.
This is a pulling together of personal stories, things that
I have lived through and how I went from where
I was living on the streets of Detroit, and how
(57:14):
I survived the streets of Detroit and created a life
that I love. When I had all of the obstacles
in my way, I had the perfect recipe to become
a statistic How did I overcome? What did I do well?
Those questions are answered in my book Bored to Death
and five Easy Steps. I share these steps with young
(57:37):
people and I get transformation, and I see transformation. Their
lives are empowered on a daily basis. This is powerful
Living in action when I go and speak to these
young people. Now, how you can come alongside is a
couple of ways. You can obviously give directly to this ministry.
If you want to reach out to us Powerful Living
(57:57):
twenty twenty two at gmail dot com. You can reach
out to us directly and just say hey, Henry how
can I support your ministry financially. Also you can text
us or call, but likely a text would be better
at five one, three, four, zero, four, seven seven nine three,
(58:19):
leave us a message and just tell us I'd like
to be involved financially. How can I support your ministry
and we'll give back to you there as well. Also,
you can contact us about purchasing copies of my book
so that when I go and speak to the young
people in high school. Sometimes I'll do middle schools, but
most of the time it's high school and college and
(58:41):
those who are usually financially constrained and don't have the
opportunity to purchase my book. If you purchase my book,
every book that you purchase will be an opportunity for
me to put another one copy of my books in
the hands of our young people, and so they can
take home the message that I deliver in person, and
(59:02):
they can be empowered and study and see what I
did to create a life that I love, and therefore
they'll be able to see themselves doing it as well.
That's powerful living, and my friend, that is powerful giving.
And I hope you will take us up on that opportunity.
(59:23):
If you have feedback and you'd like to suggest a
shell topic, content ideas, if you have questions, if I
said something that you don't agree with, whatever it is,
whatever kind of feedback that you'd like to give, bring it.
You can email us Powerful Living twenty twenty two at
(59:45):
gmail dot com. You can call us at five Poine
three or a Zeroport seven seventy nine three. However you
get your information to us, just understand I will respond
to you directly. I am open questions, concerns, show ideas, topics,
anything you have in reference to feedback. You let me
(01:00:08):
know and especially tell us how this ministry has powerfully
impacted your life, and I will likely share that on
a live broadcast. Thank you so much for being a
part of this ministry. I can't wait to see these
empowerment sessions pop up all over the country, all over
(01:00:29):
the world, and all over the lives of people. Powerful
Living is there for you and me. Thank you, my friends,
God bless you.
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