The Commanded Blessing – Part 5 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Friends, it’s great to have you on the show today. And we’re sharing about the anointing of God that flows in a community of believers when they’re working together in unity. We’re gonna be sharing from Psalm 133. You don’t wanna miss this. It says “There, the Lord commands his blessing, even life forevermore.” So open up your heart and receive the word today. Friends, it’s great to have you with us on the broadcast today. We’ve been sharing all week on the commanded blessing of God, and we talked about a lot of things. We talked about the commanded blessing as part of the covenant of blessing. We talked about the fact that Jesus is our rest and Jesus is our jubilee. And in both of those things, God commands his blessing. There’s a blessing of supernatural increase. We talked about not only that Jesus is our rest, Jesus is our jubilee, but we talked about the commanded blessing. The devil can’t stop it. When you really understand it, Jesus has already stripped the enemy of his power and Satan cannot stop the blessing of God. And now we’re gonna be sharing on the commanded blessing can work in a community of blessing. So Aaron, I’ll let you just jump into the word.

 

  That’s awesome. I like that we’ve been talking about the blessing and we kinda started off talking about how the blessing is in you. So you don’t really have to chase after the blessing. If you understand that the blessing, because Jesus is in you, that it’s already in you. You don’t have to chase it. It’s gonna overtake you. You don’t chase the blessing, the blessing chases you. So you have the blessing in you. And because the blessing is in you, the blessing’s gonna come on you.

 

  Amen.

 

  And we’re gonna talk about the corporate blessing that we see, the corporate commanded blessing really, in Psalm 133. But it relates to the anointing. The anointing is the power of God, the purpose of God, the provision of God, the plans of God. And we see the anointing. As believers, the anointing is in us because Jesus is in us.

 

  Amen.

 

  The anointing is on us.

 

  Right?

 

  Amen. And the blessing, the anointing in you will lead you to the anointing on you.

 

  Amen.

 

  As well, that specific plan and anointing that God has for your individual life.

 

  Let’s talk about that for a minute before we move on. But, you know, the anointing in you. When you’re born again, you know, the Bible says this in 1 John 2, I think it’s verse, it’s between verse 20 and verse 27. I think it’s verse 20. It says, “You have an unction or you have an anointing from the holy one and you know all things.” And you know what? If you study that scripture in 1 John 2, what John is actually talking about is, we have an anointing of truth. We have an anointing of life. And that anointing really protects us from the devil and his power. Right? And that’s really the context of what’s being said. He says later in the book, “Greater is he that’s in you than he that’s in this world.” So when you think about the anointing of truth, the anointing of life, you have the spirit of Christ in you. You have the exact same spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead. So you have an anointing to walk out the gospel as much as any other believer in the world, because the spirit of Christ in you, that is equal with all believers. But there is an anointing on you. And Jesus said this in Luke 4:18. He said, “The spirit of the Lord is on me because he’s anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” So the anointing on you is an anointing to minister to other people. So when you think, the anointing in us to live out the gospel is the same. But as far as the anointing on us, for instance, the anointing to preach or the anointing to heal, there could be various aspects of that anointing. The anointing to preach. There’s people that are called to be apostles, people that are called to be prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. And not everyone. When the Bible talks about that, it says he gave some, right, to equip the saints to minister. And then when you talk about different anointings to heal, like all who believe will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. Mark says that. But there are different aspects of the anointing to heal. There are different aspects of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And you have the gift of faith. You have the working of miracles, the gift of the working of miracles, and you have the gifts, plural, of healings. And those can vary according to the anointing on a person’s life, to minister to other people. For instance, Andrew Wommack and I teach almost identically the same things. But the way that I minister and the way that he ministers are, you know, pretty different in just the way that we communicate the gospel, even though we’re communicating the same thing. It’s the same gospel, it’s the same teaching, but he’s anointed as a teacher. I believe he’s an apostle, right? With the, you know, of the message of grace. But along with an apostle, you could operate in any of that. You could operate as a prophet, an evangelist, a teacher, you know, pastor, teacher. But he has built his ministry really on his strength and anointing as a teacher. And I’m anointed more as a pastor. And so the way that I communicate things is different than the way Andrew communicates things, even though we’re preaching the same word most of the time.

 

  That’s awesome. So let’s look here at Psalm 133 just talking about this corporate commanded blessing.

 

  Amen.

 

  So here in Psalm 133, it says, “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” You know, a lot of New Testament scripture, a lot of things that Paul wrote was to bring people towards unity. Hey, we need need to work together. We need to have a unified vision, a unified calling towards God. And, you know, God likes to work through relationships.

 

  Amen.

 

  You know, the devil likes to isolate people.

 

  Sure.

 

  And you know, there’s actually Proverbs that talk about it, how someone who’s in isolation is…

 

  It’s Proverbs 18:1. It says, “He who separates himself comes into contention with all wisdom.”

 

  And that word contention, that’s a big word too. You know, God doesn’t like someone who stirs up contention and stirs up strife. God really wants peacemakers, people who work towards unity. Verse two here in Psalm 133, it says, “It’s like the precious oil upon the head, running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garments.” So it’s talking about that oil, that anointing oil, that came upon Aaron, who is the head priest, the first priest of the Levitical priesthood. They were separated, they were anointed, they were called and purposed to do it. There was an anointing oil upon them. It says, “It ran down.” In verse three, it says, “It’s like the dew of Hermon descending upon the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord commanded the blessing life forevermore.”

 

  Amen.

 

  So here, this psalm of unity, of just coming together as a corporate body of believers.

 

  Amen.

 

  Just coming together as a household of faith. There is just so much power there. There’s so much… It’s really incredible. You know, I love, you know, music. I’m a musician. I love to sit at home on the piano and worship God. And it’s very anointed. It’s very special. But there’s something that I think is even more powerful when we come together as a body of believers.

 

  Amen.

 

  At a church service and worship Jesus all together in unity with the band, with the singers, with the entire congregation.

 

  Amen.

 

  Just singing songs of praise, songs of faith, songs that just worship and adore Jesus. There’s something that’s so powerful.

 

  Amen.

 

  And I’ve, you know, witnessed people getting healed, being set free. People even just experience the presence of God, just from a corporate worship time.

 

  Amen. It’s really powerful when people come together. You know, the Bible actually says in Psalm, I think it’s 22:3, that God inhabits. “You are holy who inhabit the praises of Israel.” God inhabits the praises of his people. And when you just get together with other believers and worship God, you know, worship Jesus, there’s just something that happens. It’s special.

 

  And here in Psalm 133, it’s actually talking about when you’re a part of a good corporate body.

 

  Amen.

 

  And I’m talking about, you know, being associated with good ministries, maybe you’re partners with a Lifegiving Ministry, or you’re actively involved at a good church. There’s something super powerful that happens with that.

 

  Amen.

 

  There’s a corporate blessing, there’s a corporate commanded blessing upon it.

 

  Aaron, we’ve had people from other states that, you know, they’re not close to a place where they can really get good, you know, spirit filled grace and faith teaching like, you know, we have here. And so we’ve had people actually begin to partner with us from other states, and they’ve actually called in and testified, hey, when we begin to partner with your ministry, we noticed immediately, you know, that our income increased. Immediately that certain things, blessings, begin to flow. And I believe there’s an anointing, a provision, there’s an anointing of blessing and increase on our ministry. And if people get connected with us and they really believe it, I believe they can start flowing in that.

 

  And God showed some something to me too recently about just local churches, and just really how people can tap into that corporate anointing, that commanded blessing that’s on a place. And I think this is true for a lot of churches here, especially in America, a lotta people have a very consumeristic mentality, even when they go to church. Like, what’s in it for me? How does this benefit me? And they’re not really thinking of the church as a community of believers, where really everyone should be connected and involved through giving, through serving, through faithfulness. And God showed me that there’s kind of three groups of people within a church. There’s 1/3 of the church, 1/3 of believers that don’t really get connected at a local church. They just constantly church hop. They might go to a place, they might come here even for just two or three times and that’s it. They never really get connected. There’s another 1/3 that can get connected for a season. Maybe like a year, two, three years, but they don’t really plug in and get rooted and grounded. But then there’s 1/3 that really just, they become a part of that family, of that church family.

 

  Amen.

 

  And then that’s where that commanded blessing really flows. And I’ve seen it here. I’ve seen people who’ve been really just discipled in the word, people who’ve really connected, people who’ve gotten involved. They’ve raised their kids here. They’ve met their spouses here. And there’s just that commanded blessing that’s on their life.

 

  Amen. And Aaron, it’s not only working for people here. I know there’s people, like, I had a couple that I met here the other day and they were here from California, and they are very generous partners with this ministry. And they just, you know, they said since they’ve partnered that they have just really, really been blessed. You know, I just thanked them for their partnership. But I believe when you partner with a ministry, right, there’s certain things. Like people a lot of times will look at me and they’ll say, man, you’re a lot like Andrew Wommack, which I consider a tremendous blessing when people say that. Even though we’re foundationally, you know, just a little bit different in the way that we share. Or people will say the anointing… Andrew actually said this about me, the anointing that was on Lester Sumrall is on you. Which is just, man, it’s just thrilling. You know, so there’s the people that are here that really connect, but if you can’t be here in person, you can livestream. And I know that people that connect with this ministry and partner get some of that blessing flow. And we’ll be back in just a second. Friends, we’ve been teaching from my series, the Blessing of the Lord and my son, Aaron’s teaching on the Commanded Blessing. You can get these and hundreds of hours more absolutely free of charge, downloadable, in audio and video on the website at www.charischristiancenter.com. Get ahold of this truth. Blessings.

 

  I started having sharp pains in my left knee and they just gradually became more irritated. Sunday night, Jesse Duplantis was at church. I started thinking, I need Jesse to pray for me tonight. He walked down the aisle and he stopped in front of me and he said, “Can I pray for you?” He prayed for me. When I got up, I started working my leg. The pain was gone. It was gone.

 

  Friends, thank you so much for staying with us. I’m so glad we’ve got Aaron. He’s been talking about, there’s an anointing. You know, there’s not only anointing on us as individuals, right? We talked about that in the first part of the broadcast. Anointing to live, there’s an anointing to minister. And we’re all to be ministers, in a sense, of the gospel. We’re to serve one another. 1 Peter 4:10 says, “As every person has received the gift, so let them minister as good stewards of the many fold, the many-sided grace of God.” But there’s also a corporate anointing, and you’ve been talking about that. And I know there’s another pastor in town and he said, “I’m anointed in this area, but if you need healing, you go to Pastor Lawson’s church ’cause there’s an anointing there to get people healed.”

 

  And when the minister, when the pastor, when the head of that body really has a revelation of something and really teaches it and disciples people in it, you know, that’s how people receive faith is by hearing. And some places don’t ever talk about healing. So you know, that healing anointing’s not really gonna flow there ’cause it goes from the top down.

 

  It’s gonna be harder for people to receive things. If you have no revelation of it, if you’re never taught.

 

  Or if it’s taught against, maybe.

 

  That’s terrible!

 

  Sometimes people teach against, you know, these promises of God that are available to us as believers.

 

  Aaron, years ago, we had a couple come here and they went to another very large church in this community. And the pastor asked this woman, well, you know, what’s the diagnosis of the doctor? And basically the diagnosis of the doctor was that she was gonna die. And it was terrible.

 

  Well, the pastor even asked him, how long did she have?

 

  Yeah, how long do you have? I mean, they’d just been barely going there. So they quit that church immediately and started coming to our church and God completely healed this woman. Now, it wasn’t immediate, but it was over a process of time. You know, and I just thank God that healing comes, whether it’s immediate or whether it’s over a process of time. But you know what? It’s hard when somebody doesn’t believe God, you know, to get them really operating in this blessing. If you don’t teach something and believe it, it’s hard to receive it. I know one good friend of mine, he just says this all the time, he says, well, if you believe that, he tells me that you and your brothers are blessed. Like we’ve been talking about this commanded blessing, because you believe it. And, you know, I wrote this book on provision, and I actually had three different people, Jesse Duplantis, Andrew Wommack, another good friend of mine, wrote words in this book. And when they wrote words in this book, every one of ’em said, you gotta believe this to receive it. And you know what? If you’ll believe this stuff, it works. Man, it’s working for me. I’m so glad that I first heard this preached, you know, like 46 years ago in Andrew Wommack’s ministry as I’m sitting here teaching. And, praise God, when I heard it, I believed it. And you know what? I’ve received different aspects of revelation in these 46 years. But listen, it’s working in my life.

 

  Yeah. And as a community of believers, we’re talking about that commanded blessing that’s on a group of believers who are in unity, who are believing, who are in faith, who are confessing the same thing. There’s a commanded blessing on that.

 

  Amen.

 

  And, you know, I love something that Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 to Peter when he was talking about the church. And the church hadn’t been started yet. You know, the church started in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost with the power of the Holy Ghost. And that’s how the church should continue today as well.

 

  Amen.

 

  You know? I actually kind of find it interesting, every now and then I see people online post, you know, they’re new to the area. They’re looking for a church and they list the things that they’re looking for in a church. And I kind of realized that a lot of people aren’t really looking for a church as Jesus defines it. They’re looking for like a Christian club where, you know, they can have some golf buddies, where they can, you know, have some free childcare. They aren’t really looking for the right things. And really, if you’re looking for a good church, number one, you want a church that preaches the Bible, that believes the Bible, that it is the word of God. That all doctrine, you know, it’s all inspired by God.

 

  Amen.

 

  And that’s where we believe the Bible. Number two, you want a church that believes in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

 

  Amen.

 

  And believes in the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit. That’s how the church began in Acts 2.

 

  Amen.

 

  And I think that’s how the church should still continue until Jesus comes again.

 

  Amen. I believe the church started in the power of God, and I believe the church is gonna go out in the power of God.

 

  And number three, you want a church where there’s a revelation of grace, where people aren’t judgmental, where people aren’t harsh, but there’s an understanding of grace. That we understand that God, man, he freely gives us things through Jesus and we can extend grace to other people. And fourth, you wanna be around a group of believers that really understand faith. Some people who know how to pray the prayer of faith. At some point in your life-

 

  Hallelujah.

 

  You’re gonna need some strong people of faith to lay hold, to agree with you, to pray with you, to be examples for you.

 

  Amen.

 

  So that’s what you look for. So Matthew 16:18, Jesus said this, he said, “I say to you that you are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church.” And that’s talking about the rock of the revelation, that Jesus is Lord.

 

  Amen.

 

  It says, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” So here Jesus is saying that the church needs to be on the offense.

 

  Amen. Hallelujah.

 

  Too much of modern, you know, Christians today are just constantly in retreat mode.

 

  Yeah.

 

  You know, just retreating all the time and constantly on the defense, but we should be on the offense.

 

  Praise god.

 

  We should be putting some points on the board.

 

  Amen. Aaron, you know, I was just recently teaching and I was talking about purpose, and I was talking about the purpose of the church and why are we here? We’re here to exalt Jesus. We’re here to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry, and we’re here to evangelize the world. And in that order, we start with exalting Jesus. But you know, Acts 1:1 you know, Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, and I believe he did it. But Acts 1:1 says, you know, “This former treaty have I written, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and teach.” Well, indicating that he’s continuing. So how does Jesus continue his ministry? What he’s doing, and he continues through the church. And Ephesians 1 says, “The church is his body, the fullness of him that fills all things.” And Paul is actually praying for the church. Ephesians is a book written about the victorious church. And he prays that we would know him, that we would know, you know, his calling, right? And that we would know his power. But then in this scripture that you’re quoting, in Matthew 16, as Jesus is talking to Peter, he says, “Who do men say that I am?” Then he rephrases it, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter answers, “You’re the Christ, the son of the living God.” The church is built on the revelation of who Jesus Christ is. That he’s the Messiah, that he’s the anointed one, that he’s the son of the living God. Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. But Jesus said on this rock, the rock of this revelation, I’ll build my church and the gates of hell. Again, we talked about in a former broadcast this week that Satan cannot stop the commanded blessing of God. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church that Jesus builds. But then the next aspect, not only do we need to get a revelation of who Jesus is, he says, “And whatsoever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” So we need to get a revelation of who Jesus is, but we also need to get a revelation of our authority in Christ. And, you know, here’s something that’s amazing. Jesus was teaching his disciples, right? Getting them ready for his departure. In John 14, 15, and 16, he primarily teaches two things. The power of the Holy Spirit and the power invested in us as the authority of the believer. That’s primarily what he talks about. And inevitably, did you know most churches leave those two things out? Even churches that have been born in the power of the Holy Spirit, they no longer teach on the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit. They no longer teach on the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. They no longer teach on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you know? And very few churches really teach on the authority of the believer. And that is that, you know, you have something to say about what you receive from God. You don’t have to just hang on and hope to God you make it. You know, this church I grew up in was like one foot in the grave and one foot in a banana peel. We didn’t believe much of nothing. We did get saved there, praise God. But there’s more.

 

  Yeah. So like I said, the church, the corporate body of believers, you shouldn’t just be constantly in retreat mode, constantly on the defense. Sometimes you need to go into offense mode. Like I said, you gotta put some points on the board, you know? Like a football team just can’t win with defense only. You’re gonna have to have an offense. You’re gonna have to have a quarterback, someone who’s gonna throw some passes. And you gotta get to the end zone and score some points.

 

  And get in the game.

 

  And, you know, the commanded blessing that we’ve been talking about here in Psalm 133 on that unified body of believers, it’s so powerful. It’s so special. It’s so… Man, God just loves it so much. I think the enemy just wants to do whatever he can to stir up strife, to stir up, you know, offense and bitterness and just get people out of unity. And the way he does it, it’s usually over stupid things.

 

  Yeah. Hey, years ago, Billy Joe Daugherty, you know, ran out of ORU and he asked a very awesome minister from the Voice of Healing who was teaching, how can I make it, you know, in the body of Christ? How can I make it doing what God’s called? And this minister told him, don’t get bitter. Man, I could say that 1,000 times. Man, don’t get offended. Offense is like a one-way street straight out of what God called you to do and be.

 

  And I’ll just tell some of you, ’cause offense is actually a big problem for a lot of people, even for pastors, like my dad is saying. And I actually, you know, I have the opportunity to be offended almost daily. So I have to choose not to be offended, choose not to eat that plate of offense. Hebrews 12, 14, and 15, it says, “Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God.”

 

  Amen.

 

  “Lest any root of bitterness spring up, cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.” So a lot of people can be defiled by that root of bitterness. And I know in a corporate, in a community of believers, one of the best ways to insulate yourself from that root of bitterness that the enemy tries to strip all the time is to be involved, be involved with giving, and also be involved with serving. What can I bring to the table? You know, if you’re giving, if you’re serving, if you’re part of really engaged in that ministry and that church.

 

  In that community of believers, it’s hard to get offended.

 

  It’s hard to get offended, ’cause you’re a part of it, you’re a part of that family. You know, I have a 10-year-old son and if he gets really cranky and in complain mode, you know, II give him a job to do. You’re gonna have some chores. You’re gonna help out around here. It’s not just Mom and Dad who does all the work. You’re gonna pitch in, and that kinda puts a stop to that root of bitterness.

 

  Amen. Well, you know, I just wanna encourage you, you know, God wants to bless you, but there are some things that you can allow that will hinder that, unforgiveness, strife, bitterness. These things can hinder the gospel. So let go of those things, move forward, move on with Jesus, and move into what God has for you. If you don’t have a church home, you don’t have a church family, we wanna invite you, if you’re in the Colorado Springs area, to come to Charis Christian Center. If you’re not, you can watch us online at www.charischristiancenter.com or YouTube, other venues broadcast our stream. We’d love to hear from you. And thanks so much for being a part today. Blessings.

 

  Hi, everyone. We have a special announcement for you.

 

  We’re having a camp meeting and it’s for the whole family. We have special kids teaching, special youth teaching, special adult teaching, special guests, and special worship. It’s a great event and you don’t wanna miss it. I believe it will be a blessing to you and your family. So come see us.

 

  There are only two types of believers, those who are blessed and know it, and those who are blessed and don’t know it. God has commanded his supernatural blessing on you. And as you seek him first, all these things will be added to you. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of Pastor Aaron’s teaching, the Commanded Blessing, and Pastor Lawson’s teaching, the Blessing of the Lord, a $20 value free of charge. Download your copy today at www.charischristianscenter.com.

 

  Friend, I don’t wanna leave this broadcast without giving you the opportunity to receive Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. Pray with me right now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe that he died on the cross for my sins. I believe that you raised him from the dead and made him Lord. And right now, I surrender my life to you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

 

  Thanks for watching “Grace For Today.” This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000 or to partner online, go to www.charischristiancenter.com/give. You can write us at P.O. Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on “Grace For Today.”