Stay The Course – Part 3 Lawson and Barbara Perdue (Updated)

 Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to our broadcast. I’m so glad that you tuned in. I have my wife, Barbara. We’re talking about staying the course. And the last two days, we’ve been talking about, you know, doing the Word of God, and the Word of God lays out truth and error. But today, we’re gonna talk about how we need the power of the Holy Spirit. And you know, without the Holy Spirit, we cannot accomplish, ultimately, what God has called us to do. Stay tuned and be blessed. Friends, it’s so good to have you here today, and I’m so glad to have Barbara, and we’re sharing your teachings, a great teaching. And you’re teaching on stay the course. I can tell you, there’s a lot of people that I know who have not stayed the course. And actually, Kenneth E. Hagin said this years and years ago. He said, “Many preachers,” the Lord spoke to him, “Many preachers live and die without ultimately fulfilling “what God has called them to do.” And I see so many people tell me, “God told me to do this.” And then, man, seems like 15 minutes later, they’re off on another track. And you know, it just takes time, and you just gotta, you gotta be diligent. You know, one of my good friends, Brother Bill Behrman, went home to be with the Lord, and he pastored, actually, three churches in the state of Colorado, two of ’em he pioneered. He pioneered a church in Castle Rock, Colorado, and then in Burlington, Colorado. He was a very successful pastor. And then he went into missions ministry, and actually, for at least 20 years, over 20 years, probably 25 years, he was doing missions, traveling around the world, and, you know, got literally hundreds of people filled with the Holy Ghost and sent forth into the ministry. But he told me one reason, Lawson, that he believed that I was so successful is he said, “You’re so diligent.” And he said, “A lot of people just aren’t diligent. “They just give up and quit “the first little thing that goes wrong, “and I’m telling you, you’re in the world, Jesus said, “in the world, you’ll have tribulation. “There’s trouble, there’s difficulty, there’s problems, “but you know what? “If God’s called you, God will help you, “and you just gotta keep your eyes on Jesus “and keep living by faith.” Praise God. And you got some great stuff to share. Praise the Lord.

 Well, amen. You know, yesterday, we talked about, for an example in the Bible, we talked about Noah. You’re talking about being diligent or being a person of consistency. Noah found favor and grace in the eyes of the Lord. He had a relationship with God, and when God spoke to him, he listened. And what I like about that, we read it in the Bible. They can go online and get this teaching or listen to it, but what I noticed, Noah did a lot of listening and let God do the talking, and then the Bible says how Noah did everything that God said. And you brought out that that was a 100-year life journey, living out what God had called him to.

 Just building the ark.

 Just building the ark.

 That took him from the time he was 500 to the time he was 600. And then he lived a number of years after that. So man, it took a long time. It took him and his whole family. And in that 100 years, people mocked him and scorned him. The Bible called him a man of faith and a preacher of righteousness. And it calls him, in Hebrews 11, a man of faith because he prepared an ark to the saving of his household. But the world mocked him and scorned him and laughed at him. We don’t get our accolades from the world. I don’t care what the world thinks. A lot of us, that’s easy to say. It’s not always easy to do. But Noah lived for God, and I love that you brought that. That’s the very last verse in Genesis 6 when it says Noah did according to all that the Lord spoke to him. And we need to be doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving our own self.

 Well, another thing we brought out yesterday too is when God spoke to Noah and when he listened and chose to obey, in other words, do something with the information God gave him, he didn’t say, “Well, how’s this gonna be done? “I don’t know how to do it. “It’s never been done before. “Where’s the money gonna come from? “Where’s the provision gonna come from?” You know, everything we need is in this earth. The resources are here. It is a walk of faith, I believe, to trust God. But I like what you brought out too yesterday that God has, if he has called you to do something, he has also given you that ability. A lot of times we live in a culture that’s always telling us, “You, it can’t be you. “You can’t do it. “Who are you?” You know, maybe you don’t fit the world’s stereotype. The world’s always trying to chop you down. But what I see in the word of God, there is a God, he loves you. And hallelujah, he has sent his son, Jesus Christ, that has made us victorious here and now in this life, not just talking about heaven, but in this life. I get excited as we continue to talk about this. Stay the course. God has amazing plans for you. And there’s a scripture that really leaped out and spoke to me as God called us to plant churches and pioneer churches. It really took the pressure off me. And this is found in Zechariah 4, 6. And it says, “So he answered and said to me, “‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, “‘not by might nor by power, “‘but by my spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” In other words, I like what God is saying. He’s telling him, as the governor of Judah, “Don’t put all your trust in faith in the resources of man, “but put your trust in me. “It’s not by might, it’s not by power, “it’s by my spirit,” says the Lord. Isn’t that awesome?

 Yeah, and if we’re gonna stay the course, we need the strength of the spirit of God. We cannot accomplish God’s plans without the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. We need the truth of the word of God, but we also need the power of the Holy Spirit. And really, the Bible actually says this in John 4, 24. It says, “God is a spirit, and those who worship him “must worship him in spirit and truth.” And you know what? If we’re gonna have true revival and things that really change and last, we gotta have the truth of the word of God, but we gotta have the power of the Holy Spirit. And Dr. Lester Sumrall said, “You know what? “We need the old men so that we don’t blow up, “but we need the young men so that we don’t dry up. “You know, we need the truths of the word of God “so we don’t blow up. “We need the power of the Holy Spirit so we don’t dry up.” And we tend to get on one or the other, but not really have a balance of those things. We tend to just follow the word of God or we tend to go in the power of the spirit, but we need the truth of the word coupled with the power of the spirit. It’s kinda like we need grace and faith. Those things balance each other out. The grace of God is the ability of God, but it takes faith, you know, our faith to accomplish what grace has provided. And you know what? You can focus all on grace, and if you do that, it becomes sovereignty. And churches that teach all grace and really don’t teach you faith, it becomes sovereignty. And then, or you can teach all faith and not teach grace, and that becomes works. And you know what? We need both the grace of God. We need God’s power, we need God’s ability, but we need faith, and it takes both of those things. And we need, so we need absolute truth of the word of God. I don’t wanna vary from the word of God, but we need the power of the Holy Spirit to back that up.

 I love that. There’s something else in here that I thought would be really important to share today that would be very helpful to everyone who’s tuned in right now. And this is found in Philippians 4, six through eight. I believe it’s good to be reminded, be anxious for nothing. Don’t be anxious.

 Amen.

 And so this is gonna encourage you. Again, this is Philippians 4, six through eight, and it says, be anxious for?

 Nothing.

 Nothing.

 Don’t worry about anything.

 But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, I like that. With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. We can talk to God and we can talk to Him every day and He can handle it.

 Amen.

 We can go to Him with our thanksgiving, but let our requests be made known. And I like what it says when we do this, when we come to Him with thanksgiving, knowing that He’s a good Heavenly Father. Verse seven says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. I like that, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. It wasn’t too long ago during a pandemic when they had everybody’s so afraid, so scared, and you and I went to a grocery store one day during the, again, during this pandemic, and people were doing a fear buying, you know? The stores-

 Crazy.

 The stores had no canned goods left, and I don’t like anything.

 I mean, they had some, but most of the shelves were empty. People were running around with carts, two or three carts full of all this stuff that you probably don’t even wanna eat. In all reality, a lot of it, sometimes I think I’m gonna get this and it looks nice, and then I look at what it’s got in it, and I’m like, maybe I better not eat that.

 Well, again, like I mentioned, in the word it says, peace that surpasses all understanding. So I know when we walked into the store this day, I noticed what you mentioned, that there’s a lot of people with one and two carts just piled up mountain high, and I’m like, they can’t even probably eat that stuff in the next 10 years. And so I noticed that the fresh produce section, there was nobody there. There was all this fresh fruit and vegetables, which that’s the food I like to eat. So we were over there, and we didn’t even get a cart that day. I grabbed a few bananas, we got some apples and oranges, or a few vegetables, and we just carried our few groceries over there to the self-checkout. And as we were checking out, it was really interesting. The woman in front of us, she looked at us and then looked around, and then she looked at us again, and she pointed at me, and she says, “You’re not from around here, are you?” Isn’t it interesting? The peace that we carried in our hearts surpassed all understanding, and it even got noticed that we weren’t reacting in fear like the world was. We had peace. We knew that God is on the throne, and he’s with us, and he’s gonna get any supplies we need to us, but I don’t have to live in fear or hoard by, be a hoarder and go shop and act that way. But when we walk in that kind of peace, it takes notice, and the world is like, “I want that.” It’s attractive to people who are out there.

 Amen. You know, I’ve just got such a piece of my heart that God is gonna provide for me. God is gonna help me. I told you recently, I don’t care if the ravens have to bring me bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening like they did Elijah, but God is gonna take care of me. And you know what? God takes care of me in grand style. And I like to say this. I learned it from Mark Hankins, but my father God always takes care of me in grand style. You know, something happened this past week that just touched me. And I was going through, you manage most of the cash, and I was giving, you take a percentage, like a monthly amount, and it’s not a big amount, but you just manage that, and it’s yours. You do whatever you want. But when I went through, I counted, I was a little short in the cash account. So this just happened on a Friday, and I asked the Lord, I said, “Lord, I’d like to have another $100 “in that cash account.” And then on a Sunday, this guy came in, he hadn’t given me anything for a long, long time, and he handed me $100. And I thought, that is amazing. I prayed and I asked God for $100, and God gave it to me. And maybe you think, well, that’s not a big deal. Well, it is a big deal. And I texted that man, and I told him, “I want you to know that you heard God.” And it touched him. But God takes care of us, and many times, we don’t have things because we don’t ask, and we don’t trust God. And it just blessed me. It just blessed me that God heard my prayer and answered it. And I have the blessing of God. I had to go into the dentist just recently, and I went into the dentist to get my teeth cleaned, and they said, “You need two crowns, “and you need all these fillings.” Man, it should have been like $5,000. And the dentist said, “Well, I’m gonna give this crown to you, “and then we’re gonna give you this discount.” And they said, “Well, if you pay today,” they said, “we’re gonna take this much off.” And I got out of there for about 40% of what that should have cost. Praise God. And God, again, our Father God loves us, and He always takes care of us in a great style. And you know, when we just put our trust in Him. So we’re gonna come back, and we’re gonna talk more about relying on the Holy Spirit, and trusting God, not living in fear, so that you can fulfill God’s purpose and stay the course. So stay tuned. We’ll be right back. Blessings. Friends, we’ve been teaching from Barbara’s teaching on stay the course. And you know what? If you don’t quit, you’ll win in the realm of faith. So you can go to our website at CharisChristianCenter.com. You can get this downloadable audio, downloadable video, and hundreds of other teachings absolutely free of charge. Blessings.

 I’ve been dealing with sciatic nerve pain in my right leg for multiple years. We were actually about to walk out of service when my wife redirected me to the front. She told me that you were talking about nerve damage. Yourself, Erin, and your dad were in back of me, and you guys were praying over me. I just felt this movement in my hips and in my back that I haven’t felt like a freedom. The next morning, I tried to move in the ways that I didn’t in the past, and it felt completely healed.

 Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us, and I got Barbara here. Barbara, go ahead and share. You’ve been sharing about following the Holy Spirit and living in peace.

 Amen, I love what we were bringing out before the break, that the Bible encourages us. Be anxious for how many things?

 Nothing.

 Nothing. I looked at my husband’s to see if he’s paying attention, and I call that an instant oral test. Have you been listening? So be anxious for nothing, but we’re reading in Philippians chapter four, and I’m gonna continue with verse eight. It says, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, “whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, “whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, “whatever things are of good report, “if there is any virtue, “and if there isn’t anything praiseworthy, “meditate on these things.” So the Bible is saying, “Meditate on these things.” You know, in our culture, there’s so much just being broadcast that really is contrary to what the word of God says. Always trying to keep you in fear. And I wanna bring out another thing. You know, to me, Marketing 101 is always trying to portray and tell you everything you’re missing out, everything that you don’t have, and this is why you need it, and that’s marketing.

 I was gonna read one more verse, but did you wanna share something real quick?

 You know, what they wanna do is use fear to market, or what will make you happy? And I remember years ago, we went over to visit your grandmother over on the Western Slope, and so we had this deal, and it was close to Vail, Colorado, and they were trying to sell you a timeshare or something, but you know what, we thought, we’ll just spend the night and we’ll listen to their hour sales pitch. And it was a nice place, so we got the night for free and we went in to listen. And this lady came down and she was trying to hard sell us, and finally she said, “What would make you happy?” And I said, “Well, I am happy.” You know, it’s just like I broke her bubble. Because if you’re happy, if you’re satisfied, if you’re not a victim, if you’re looking at what’s good, you know, and not letting fear motivate you, or need motivate you, or emotion motivate you, you just keep yourself out of a lot of messes that you don’t need to be in.

 I call it, really, and I don’t respond to this when ministries or even businesses try to get you to give out of an emotion, you know, make everything about an emotional giving. It just turns me off. I give because I purpose in my heart, but that’s a whole nother topic.

 Or about fear, I wanna talk about this, because you were just talking about this, and it so fits what we were talking about in the pandemic, how people were afraid. And I remember what happened, and ministers were playing on this, and these people think the world’s going to hell in a handbasket, and everything’s gonna go under, and you need to have your basement full of groceries, and I’m telling you, that’s a bunch of fear, it’s a bunch of lies, and I’m not gonna buy it. And I remember when we were in Kit Carson, and we pastored this church out in the wilderness, and I love the people at Kit Carson. If you’re watching, we love you. We still got great friends there. But, you know, we had a lady in our church, and she wanted me to, you know, fill the church up with food, and all this stuff,

 Because that was in 1999, and they thought when it would hit 2000, Y2K, right?

 Yeah, it was actually in 1998 when I first heard it. And this lady came to me in later 1998 or 1999, telling me this, but I remember when I first heard about Y2K, and I was actually driving a tractor for a farmer, it was about nine o’clock at night, I was planting this field of wheat, it was in September of 1998, and it was a two mile long field, and I was pulling a 60 foot wheat drill. And, you know, I was listening to the Christian radio, and they came on talking about Y2K, and the computer’s gonna break down, and everything’s gonna go to hell in a handbasket, and it’s gonna be terrible. And I just thought, that is just fear, and it is not true. And later, like the next month, Andrew Wommack came out with a newsletter, and he said, this is all fear, and it’s not true, and if it does this, I’m gonna come back and tell you I was wrong, but I won’t be wrong. And I thought, that’s exactly what I said. Andrew’s one of my good friends, my main mentor. And then Mark Hankins, another good friend, praise God, a great ministry friend, he said, I got something better than the Y2K, it’s called the DBR, the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus, amen. And you know what? I remember, on December 31st of the year, what was it, 1999, we were in Lamar, Colorado, we were visiting your parents in Lamar, Colorado, we lived in Kitt Carson, it’s about 60 miles northwest of Lamar, 56, 60, and anyway, there was this place where you’d go to get reverse osmosis water, and there was this guy there when we went that night, and we would go get a couple gallons when we were down there, ’cause the water in Kitt Carson was pretty hard. And we would get a couple gallon of water, and you just put a quarter in or something and get a gallon of water. Well, anyway, this guy was there, and he had these 55-gallon barrels in his pickup, and he was filling ’em up with this reverse osmosis water, and it was just dripping out, because he had taken all the way, it was a great big giant machine on the side of the road, but I just went, I just said, “Okay, it’s all right, “we’ll do without the water,” and we drove on down the road, but that guy was one of these fear guys. And you know what? That was worthless, nothing. You know, a quarter a gallon. It was just, and he had to have all this stale water, because he had it all sitting around there for so long. And people are just, they just overreact, and they react to fear. But I had this woman in the church, and I said, “Listen, if we just want to exist, “all that’s just based in fear, “it’s based on an existence mentality, “and God doesn’t want us to just exist, “God wants us to thrive.” And you know what? When I was looking at that situation, it was just so crazy. But I said, “Listen, I have five grain bins, “I have three big, they were 1,500 bushel grain bins “at my feed lot, and then I have two at my house, “1,000 bushel bins, and if we want to just exist, “I can fill those grain bins up.” I’d had about 6,000, 6,500 bushels of wheat, and we could feed this town for years. We could have fed the whole town. You only need a few grains of wheat to live if you’re just trying to exist per day. You soak that stuff, man, it’s potent. But you know what? We could have fed the whole town for years, the town’s less than 300 people. But I said, “I’m not gonna do it, “because you know what, it’s not about existence, “and nothing’s gonna happen. “This is all a bunch of lies.” But I’m telling you, there’s so many of these people, I call ’em so-called prophets. I call ’em, you know, non-profit prophets, ’cause if you listen to what they say, you go broke, except they get rich selling their books and all this garbage, you know, and it’s just, now, I believe in the prophetic, I believe in the book of Revelation, and I believe a lot of things are gonna happen, they’re just gonna, most of ’em that people are really afraid about gonna happen after Jesus comes if I read the Bible right. But I know, you know, if I’m not reading it right, Jesus is gonna take care of me anyway, and I’m gonna keep my eyes on Jesus. But you know, people just react to fear, and they just react to all this stuff, and they make terrible decisions. I’ve seen people in the church for years put their money in one or two or 3% investments because they’re so afraid of everything, and I’m making over 10%, and the world will be making 10, 15% on the average while the church is reeling in fear, and I’m just tired of the body of Christ being lied to. And so I’m telling what I feel like’s the truth, and I could be wrong, but you know what? I’ve had times when I’ve lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I made them all back, praise God, and made more. And I have done better by taking risks and living by faith than I would have ever done if I’d have bought that fear garbage.

 Well again, we’re just talking about be anxious for nothing, and it tells us what to meditate on and think on, and whatever’s praiseworthy, meditate on these things. And as I’ve been bringing out, this is such good news that God is with us, He’s the one that is helping us, and I’m gonna read one more in Philippians before we go to another amazing story in the Bible. We might just barely touch on it or have to wait ’til tomorrow. But Philippians 4:13 goes on and tells us, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We’ve been talking about it’s not by might, it’s not by power, it’s by my spirit, says the Lord. And I can do all things because ultimately it’s through Christ who strengthens me. That is good news, isn’t it?

 Amen. You know, a good scripture that you have that really goes with this is here in Isaiah chapter 40, verse 28 to verse 31, talking about staying full of the Spirit, staying in the presence of God, staying renewed. You know, the Bible actually says that we can build up our most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost. And this goes right along with your first scripture. It’s not by our might, it’s not by our power, but it’s by the Holy Spirit. It’s by my spirit, says the Lord. But you can go ahead and read, or I can read Isaiah 40. Why don’t you read Isaiah 40?

 I think I’m gonna let you read that because I know we’ve had someone else that really wanted you to share on the Holy Spirit. And I think this is a good place to do this right now.

 But it says right here in Isaiah 40, verse 28, “Have you not known, have you not heard “that the everlasting God, the creator of the ends “of the earth, faints not, neither is he weary? “There’s no searching of his understanding. “He knows everything. “He gives power to the faint. “And to those who have no might, “he increases their strength. “Even the youth will faint and be weary, “and the young men will utterly fall. “But those who wait on the Lord.” You know, the Bible says, “I would have fainted “unless I believed to see the goodness of the Lord “in the land of the living.” That’s Psalm 27:13. “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. “They’ll mount up on wings like eagles. “They will run and not be weary, “and they shall walk and not faint.” And you know what? We don’t have to faint like the rest of the world. We don’t have to fall down. We can stay the course through the power of the Holy Spirit, and through the strength of God, amen, and the truth of God’s word, and we can get to our intended destination.

 Amen, why don’t you tell them how to receive the Holy Spirit? Because that was, for us, both of us have similar testimonies. That was life-changing, when we received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

 You know, if you’re born again and know Jesus as your Lord, you’re a candidate for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus, actually talking about it, said, “Ask and you shall receive.” Everyone who asks, receive. And he went on and said, “You know, if you know how to give good gifts “to your children, being evil, “how much more does your Heavenly Father “will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” And Jesus told his disciples in Luke 24, “You know, the whole reason that I came “and was crucified and resurrected “is so that redemption and remission of sin “would be preached to the whole world, “but don’t leave town without the Holy Ghost.” And then in Acts chapter one, he commanded them to tarry at Jerusalem until they were filled with the Holy Spirit. So if you need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, it’s just this simple. You ask God for it. Number two, you believe that you receive it, right? You’ve gotta ask for it, and then you just believe it, and then just receive it. And when I received it, I was in a meeting of Andrew Wallace, and I just lifted up my hands towards heaven, and I just started speaking in tongues. And that was 45 years ago, and I’ve been speaking in tongues ever since. I’ve spoken in tongues almost every day since that. But if you need to receive that, you can receive it on your own. But we have prayer ministers, and many times people call in, and they receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and their heavenly prayer language, just praying with the prayer minister here from my team. So if you’ve never received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, I wanna just tell you today that you can call in and receive that. Praise God. And we have prayer ministers that will minister to you. If you’re watching this broadcast, need prayer for salvation, healing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, whatever it is, or if you wanna become a partner with us and help us share this life-changing gospel around the world, give us a call. Blessings. Friends, we don’t want to leave this broadcast without giving you the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord. Pray with me right now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe that he died for my sins, and you raised him from the dead and made him Lord. And right now, I surrender my life to you. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

    God’s calling on your life is a lifelong journey. It will take both faith and patience for you to do what God has called you to do. The first step is to get up and go. Just remember, it’s not by might nor by power, but by his spirit. He will be with you every step of the way. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “Stay the Course,” a $15 value free of charge. Download it today at CharisChristianCenter.com. 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 CharisChristianCenter.com/give. You can write us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on “Grace for Today.”