Expanding Our Horizons – Part 4 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Praise the Lord Jesus. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today. We’re talking about “Expanding Our Horizon,” and we’re gonna talk about the value of revelation in the realm of faith. If you wanna go where God wants you to go, do what God wants you to do, be what God wants you to be, and have what God wants you to have, you need to get a revelation from Him. Receive the Word and be blessed. Friends, it’s great to have you with us today, and we’ve been talking about “Expanding Our Horizons,” and we’ve really been talking a lot about faith and how it takes faith to expand our horizons. But one thing we shared early in the week was faith begins with what we see. And God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 13:14 and said, “Lift up your eyes and look, for all the land that you see, I will give it to you and to your seed.” And if you’re gonna possess something, you gotta see it, and you gotta get a picture of it on the inside before you realize it on the outside. Then we moved in and talked about this in verse 17, in Genesis 13. God spoke to Abraham and said, “Arise, walk through the land, through its length and its breadth.” And so what God was saying is, “I want you to experience it. I want you to smell it. I want you to touch it. I want you to feel. I want it to become real to you.” You need to see yourself possessing the promise of God. You need to see yourself healed. You need to see yourself prospering. You need to see yourself doing the things of God. But you also, you need to just get a revelation of what would it be like when I’m walking in that?

 

  Yeah. And I love when you’re talking about expanding our horizons, you know, expanding what you see, but faith to see, what you’re seeing, it comes from God. God has to give you that vision. God has to give you that revelation. God pours out that grace too, that picture of grace. You know, Jesus came to put the face to God’s grace. So if you see Jesus, if you have a revelation of who Jesus is and what His will for you is, that will cause faith to stir up in your heart. But you have to see Jesus. You have to see God’s grace first.

 

  Amen.

 

  And I love that when God appeared to Abram, God’s the one who gave Abram that vision.

 

  Amen. Praise God.

 

  And God has to give you that vision personally to yourself as well.

 

  You know, when I was teaching this, I got a newsletter from Mark Hankins, and he said some things about revelation knowledge that really fit with this. And so I shared them with the church, and I wanna talk a little bit about them today. I believe they’re really powerful. But he said, “Revelation knowledge will capture the imagination.” And you can begin to imagine, you know? Imagination, most of the time in the Bible, when it’s talked about, it’s talked about negatively. But if you can turn it around and with the Word of God and begin to see what God wants you to see, and you can use your imagination in a positive way.

 

  Mm! Yeah, and I actually did an entire teaching on “The Divine Imagination,” how even God has an imagination. And when I was teaching on this, there’s a woman at our church, she has a ministry to Israel, and she has a lot of Jewish friends through this ministry. But she said in some Jewish tradition before the New Year, the Jewish New Year is Rosh Hashanah, they believe the day before the Jewish New Year is a day to dream, a day to imagine. Because they believe that before God created everything, and they believe that, they celebrate God’s creation on the New Year, that He imagined it all. I believe that to be true. You know, if you’re a creator, maybe you’re a writer, a composer, an entrepreneur, before you create a business, before you create a book, before you create, you have to imagine it first. You don’t just accidentally create something.

 

  Amen.

 

  You imagine it, you think about it, you plan for it. So maybe that God actually imagined what would happen.

 

  Amen!

 

  He imagined. I believe that’s true. I believe that even before God created the heavens and the Earth, when He spoke these things into existence that He imagined.

 

  Right!

 

  He actually imagined you.

 

  Yeah! Absolutely.

 

  You know, there’s prophets that talk about that. “Before I was formed in my mother’s womb, you knew me.”

 

  Right! God told Jeremiah, “Before you were formed in your mother’s womb, I knew you and I ordained you and I called you.” So on and so forth. And actually, Paul said this to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:8, that He saved us and called us with a holy calling before the foundation of the world. That is amazing to me. And there are things that scriptures that just really, really amaze me. But you know, Aaron, I know that you’ve taught about this thing on imagination. And I know you said you’ve taught a lot of, you know, you have a doctorate in flute, you’ve played with some of the top flute players in the world, and you’ve played in some major venues, played all around the world, but you’ve also taught a lot of students, between 6 years old probably and nearly 80.

 

  Yeah. Something I’ve observed from teaching so many students is, oftentimes as students, as children get older, they lose their sense of imagination, they lose that sense of creativity. And it’s really sad to see that how just imagination, you know, can just flee from people. And I see it in a lot of believers too.

 

  Right!

 

  Where maybe they first turned onto the Lord or first feel the Spirit, they are dreaming, they’re imagining, but then they kind of stop. But you have to have an ongoing relationship with God. You have to have an ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit. Revelation needs to keep coming. You don’t want it to dissipate. You want it to keep coming. You wanna keep imagining the things of God. And God has spoken to me this too. He said, “If you’re gonna step out and see it, you have to be able to imagine it first.”

 

  Right.

 

  And He told me, “You know, if you’re ever going to lay your hands on someone and see them raised from the dead, you have to be able to imagine it first.”

 

  Amen!

 

  If you’re not able to even imagine doing it, it’s not gonna happen in reality.

 

  Right. I actually look at scriptures. For instance, I’ve got a person that I’m praying for, and they had a stroke a few years back, and they were laid out. I mean, they could not even walk at first. I mean, they were laid out flat, they couldn’t even sit up in bed for a period of time. And then they got in a wheelchair and then, you know, they began to walk. And they lost not only their physical ability, they lost their ability to speak. And now, over time, his brain, this person’s brain, is healing. I love him. I think the world of him. I’ve been praying for him and believing God, but there’s one aspect where he’s really struggling with. And so I gave him a scripture, and it’s like the right side is still struggling with his hand and stuff. And so I’ve gave him this scripture where Jesus said, I think it’s in Mark 3, to the person with the paralyzed arm. He said, “Stretch forth your hand.” And the Word can create a picture in you and you can begin to dream about things. But I think when you’ve talked about these kids, you said, you know, 6, 7, 8-year-old kids, they have a great imagination. They kind of get 12 or 14 that they begin to go back and then they get in high school and at 16, 17, 18, it’s even less. And I know one thing, and you and your brothers have been very blessed, and you’re all in different areas of life. And Peter’s in business management in the corporate world, your youngest brother, your brother Andrew, is part owner of a large engineering company. So on and so forth. And you’ve all been very blessed. But Mom and I, basically, we spoke words of faith over you. And I think it’s very important for us with our children to speak words of faith over our children. And Mom actually wrote a book on “Imparting Success To The Next Generation.” I think it’s a great book.

 

  Mm-hmm. Yeah! And you know, a lot of… Man, and you see it in scripture too, people who really have a sense of imagination, who really dream, where it offends people.

 

  Yeah.

 

  It’s offensive to people to have imagination, to have dreams, to have ambition. Some people just, you know, it’s very unusual for much of society to.

 

  Aaron, I think big and God has helped me. You know, He helped me actually, when He moved us to Kit Carson, a very small place, He put three people in my life, and they were multimillionaire farmers and ranchers. And they basically started with nothing and borrowed money, and God blessed them and helped them. But through these different people, I began to get a vision and I began to think a lot bigger. And it really, really helped me being around those people. But when I moved to Colorado Springs, like I see opportunity everywhere, and it’s just hard for me to think that people would come here and live here and just struggle, you know? When there’s so much opportunity. But it begins with what you see. And like you’re saying, revelation knowledge will capture your imagination. And if you can dream it, I believe you can begin. And if God has any gifting whatsoever, any plan whatsoever for you to go there, I believe you can possess it. Amen? I believe God is the one who inspires this. So revelation knowledge will capture the imagination. Another thing Mark Hankins said is that, “God reveals Himself through revelation knowledge.” We need to know God, every person. We’ve defined salvation as knowing God. I believe that’s the ultimate goal of the gospel. And I believe, you know what? We need to get a revelation. You know, in Matthew 16, Jesus asked Peter, He said, “Who do you say that I am?” You know, as the disciples? And Peter said, “You’re the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus said, “Peter, you’re blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you.” You need to get a personal relationship with Jesus, a personal revelation of who He is.

 

  Yeah. And even well, at the point of salvation, when you come to believe on Jesus and make Him your Lord, it’s because the Holy Spirit gave you that revelation of who Jesus is. And by faith, you said, “I believe it and I’m gonna live for Him.”

 

  Amen.

 

  But salvation starts with revelation of who Jesus is. And Jesus was really excited when Peter spoke that revelation that, “You are the Christ. You’re the Son of the Living God.”

 

  Amen.

 

  And Jesus said, “Flesh and blood didn’t reveal this to you.” And it’s really the Holy Spirit that revealed it to him. And He said, “The gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” You know, man, the Church is built on that revelation of who Jesus is. The Church is built upon revelation. And I love something that Jesus spoke. It was when He was being tempted by Satan. You know, He quoted scripture to Satan, said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

 

  Amen.

 

  And that word there, that translation of it is rhema, and it’s a living word, it’s a spoken word. It’s active, it’s full of power, full of authority. That’s what we’re supposed to live by, the Word of God.

 

  Amen. Praise God. And so, you know, we’ve been talking about faith and how it begins with what you see, right? But secondly, it continues with revelation knowledge. And you’ve gotta get a revelation of who God is, of who Christ is, of who the Holy Spirit is. You gotta get a revelation of who you are. And then you’ve also gotta get a revelation of where God wants you to go and what God wants you to do. And if you get that revelation, it’s gonna be hard for anybody to keep you outta what God has for you.

 

  And the Word of God gives you revelation. The Word of God gives you inspiration.

 

  Amen.

 

  And if you’ve just been going for a long time without having any sense of revelation, any sense of stirring, any sense of inspiration, you need to take a step back and spend some time in the Word, spend some time in prayer, praying in tongues, and really stir up that gift that’s within you. Stir up the Holy Spirit that’s inside of you.

 

  Amen. And begin to move. You know, sometimes we just get going and we have so much to do, we just kind of become almost robotic in what we’re doing. And we just need to take time in our relationship with God. I like what you’re saying, how we need to stir ourselves up. And if you’ll stir yourself up on the inside, I believe it’ll change what you’re seeing on the outside. So we’re gonna come back after this short break and we’re gonna talk more about how you can get revelation and how that will help you possess what God promised. Friends, I’m so glad that you’ve been watching today. We’ve been sharing on “Expanding Our Horizons.” We have multiple hours of this teaching in downloadable audio, downloadable video, and many others, free of charge on our website at CharisChristianCenter.com. So take advantage of these resources and be blessed.

 

  Look what God has done for you. You know? Yes!

 

  I mean, aren’t you so glad God restores all of us?

 

  Yes!

 

  And even to above and beyond, God brings when He does it, when He restores something, it’s even more than you could have imagined. And I love that, again, when God does something for us, it affects others and then other people even see it and testify to the goodness of God.

 

  Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us, and we’ve been talking about how faith works with revelation knowledge. And we really talked about how revelation knowledge will capture our imagination, how God reveals Himself through revelation knowledge. You know, Aaron, in John 4:24, Jesus said, “God is a Spirit and they who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.” And you know what? It takes two things really to know God. It takes the truth of the Word of God, but it also takes the Holy Spirit. And we need both of those things working together. And I believe we get revelation from the Word of God, and we also get revelation from the Holy Spirit.

 

  And I love this kinda reminds me of something in scripture, but when Jesus rose from the dead, He appeared before many of His disciples, many of His followers, but oftentimes when He appeared before them, they didn’t recognize Him. They didn’t know who He was. But as He was speaking scripture to them, you know, just sharing, sharing, just kind of teaching, preaching to them, and as He was speaking scripture, just the combination of the Word and the Spirit, revealed, “Oh, this is Jesus.”

 

  Amen.

 

  And just everything came alive to them.

 

  You know, Jesus as a young child, studied the Word of God. He studied the scriptures. When He was like 12 years old, His parents had taken a trip and they lost Jesus. And they had to go back and find Jesus. And He was in the temple, and He was studying the scripture, and He was hearing questions of the leaders, right? The Jewish leaders. And He was answering the question. They marveled the knowledge that He had. But I believe Jesus went to the scripture, and Jesus from the scripture found out who God said that He was. And then He walked in that. But it wasn’t until He was 30 years old that the Holy Spirit came on Him. And when the Holy Spirit came after He was led, after the Holy Spirit came, He was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil 40 days and 40 nights. And Jesus spoke the Word and overcame. He had a revelation of the Word, the Devil every time. But then He returned, it says in Luke 4, in the power of the Spirit, and He went to His hometown, Nazareth. And as His manner was on the Sabbath day, He went to the temple and they delivered to Him the Scroll of Isaiah. And He began, He found the place. It’s like He had been studying there where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” so on and so forth. And He began to quote from the scriptures what God said about Him. And then it says He closed the book in the eyes of all were focused on Him and He said, “Today is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” Praise God.

 

  ‘Cause really neat to think about, you know, in Jesus living at that time, He probably didn’t have a Bible like we have today. He would have to go to the synagogue to actually read the scripture and study it out. There wasn’t a printing press probably, you know? These scriptures were handwritten, and you have to actually go to the synagogue to read and to study. You know, we have apps now. You can just read it on your phone. When you wake up in the morning, you can read it, you know? Pretty much everyone has access to a Bible. I’m very thankful that we live in a country here where we have an access to a Bible. We actually support a ministry that delivers Bibles to places where it’s illegal to have Bibles. They actually smuggle Bibles in.

 

  Yeah!

 

  You know, they’ve smuggled in thousands upon thousands of Bibles into Iran, where there’s a huge revival going on.

 

  Amen!

 

  And we’re just so blessed that we have such great access. You don’t even have to leave home. You can read it right when you wake up in the morning, Jesus probably had to get up and walk, go to the synagogue, and take turns reading from Isaiah or Deuteronomy.

 

  Amen. Praise God. So we know God through revelation. And when Jesus gave the great commission in Matthew 28, He said, “All power is given to me in Heaven and Earth. And go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them, immersing them into who the Father is, the Son is, and who the Holy Spirit is, teaching them to observe my commandments. And lo, I’m with you always.” You know, this is really what we’re supposed to do. We’re to teach people who God is and who Christ is, and who the Holy Spirit is. And then we’re to teach them who they are. We made a brand new children’s curriculum, and we got the first year out there, and the first year is this: Who is God and who is Christ? And who is the Holy Spirit? And who are you? That’s the first four quarters. But we’re gonna have a second year, and then we’re gonna do a first and second year of junior high curriculum, and then we’re gonna do a special curriculum. But this curriculum, you know, I was paying over $900 a year for a downloadable curriculum, and we’ve put it on our website, and we’ve made it absolutely free. And we got people in well over 30 countries in the world that are using this curriculum that we’ve just started developing. And it’s cost me thousands of dollars to do this, and we’re making this available to you free. But that’s what we want people to know, who God is. People gotta get a revelation. If you understand who God is, then you begin to understand, “This is what He wants for me.” The promises come from the nature of God. Now, that brings me to this third thing that Brother Mark said about revelation. He says, “Every advance in faith is an advance in revelation knowledge.”

 

  Mm!

 

  Man, if you’re really gonna move forward, the Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 4:13. We then, having the same spirit of faith. According as it is written, I believe and therefore I’ve spoken, we also believe and speak. Praise God. You gotta get an advance to advance in faith. You’ve got advance in revelation knowledge.

 

  I love thinking about the woman who had the issue of blood. You know, she’d been sick for 12 years and she was just exasperated, at the end of her rope. It said that she had spent everything that she had on doctors trying to get better, but just kept getting worse. But she heard about Jesus.

 

  Amen.

 

  And I believe when she heard about Jesus and heard the testimonies, heard about the healings, heard about His teaching, heard about who He was, she started imagining herself being whole. And she even said within herself, the Bible says that she said within herself, “If I can just touch the hem of His garment, I’ll be made whole.” So.

 

  Amen!

 

  You know, I believe that before she touched Jesus’s hem and just pressed through the crowd, I believe that she had already imagined herself doing that.

 

  Amen.

 

  And she had imagined what would happen to her when she did that. She imagined that issue of blood drying up and being made whole. She imagined what it would feel like.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And it’s actually a very incredible healing because when it happened, Jesus’s consciousness wasn’t involved.

 

  Right.

 

  He didn’t know. You know, a lot of people, when they pray for healing, they pray, “Well, if it be thy will.” This woman didn’t come to Jesus with a, “If it be thy will.” She said, “I already know His will. I already know what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna do this thing.”

 

  “If I can but touch Him, I will be well.” You know? And you study that in some connotations in the gospels. It says this in different translations, she said within herself and kept on saying, and she pressed through the crowd, realized she had been bleeding externally for 12 years. She had spent all of her money on the doctors. She was not any better, but continually grew worse. And the crowd was thronging Him, so she’s probably crawling. But she had a picture of that happening. And then she, like you say, she got a revelation of it, and it caused her to move towards Jesus and receive. And when Jesus felt the virtue, the goodness, and the power of God flow out of Him, He said, “Who touched me?” Praise God. The touch of faith is different.

 

  That’s incredible. And a lot of people, there’s just so many people praying these, “If it be thy will” kind of prayers, and that’s not how she approached Jesus. She already knew the will. And when you have that revelation of God’s will, when you have that revelation of God’s promises, and that they aren’t just this ethereal, dreamlike thing, it’s a reality.

 

  Amen!

 

  You know? It was a reality to that woman. And when she touched the hem, she wanted it to be a real thing. “I’m gonna actually touch His hem of that garment.”

 

  Amen.

 

  And you know, Jesus, He wore that Jewish garment that had the tassels on the end of it, and those tassels with, it talks about it in the Books of the Law. Those tassels would have blue and white thread, and they represented the promises of God. They were to remind Jewish people of God’s promises. And you’re actually wearing these promises. When she laid hold of it, she was laying hold of the promises of God. And there were promises of healing all throughout scripture, Old Testament and New Testament.

 

  Amen.

 

  But she was laying hold on the promises of God. But not only that, she was laying hold of the promise giver and the promise keeper.

 

  Amen.

 

  And the Bible says that the Son of Righteousness will arise with healing in His wings.

 

  Amen.

 

  And that word for wings, it means the corner of your garments.

 

  Praise God. That’s actually Malachi 4:2. Aaron, we’ve had a lot of people at our church healed, miraculous healings. People that were given up to die. This last year, we had a woman and they told her that she had less than a month to live. I think they told her less than three weeks, go set her house in order. And this is a year later. And did you know what? She is completely healed from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. But you know, I went to the hospital to pray for her. And when I went there, I began to tell her, for instance, about Dodie Osteen and her testimony and how John had carried her out of the hospital and spoke the Word of God over her. But she already had that and she was already speaking the Word. She was already believing. And you know some of these people like Herb Carter that was raised from the dead, that wasn’t hard to get Herb raised from the dead. Did you know what? It’s just like a natural flow because they are believing God and they are going a direction and they’re speaking. And so when you come and agree with them, it just, bam, praise God. It’s just natural. The things of the Spirit when people are believing and speaking the Word of God and when they get a revelation. So faith begins with what we see. We get a picture from the Word of God, but it continues with what we get a revelation of. And just like we said, revelation knowledge will capture your imagination. It will help you know God. God reveals Himself through revelation knowledge. But every advance in faith is an advance in revelation. I believe that God wants us to get a revelation of who He is, of who Christ is, of who the Holy Spirit is, and of where He wants us to go, what He wants us to do, what He wants us to have. And if you can see it on the inside, if you can get that revelation on the inside, it will change what you’re receiving.

 

  I like something that you’ve said too, that grace comes by revelation. And really having a true understanding of grace, it only comes by revelation. You can’t just rationalize it.

 

  Amen.

 

  And I love that this ministry is founded upon just a revelation of grace. And I know that’s something you’ve talked about. I think you spoke to Andrew Wommack about it, just how, and he said, “Really, grace, it’s so profound, so immense.” God’s goodness, His mercy, His grace, it can only come by revelation. And when you have that revelation of grace, that’s what inspires your faith.

 

  Amen. You know, Andrew Wommack actually told me, he said, “I’ve taught grace all around the world.” But he said, “I believe it takes a revelation from God for you to get a revelation of grace. It’s supernatural.” And I actually have a teaching that I did with him and we’re gonna have Andrew again in the future about the “Revelation of Grace.” And we actually have four programs that we taught, and you can actually get those downloadable audios and videos off our website at CharisChristianCenter.com, absolutely free. I also have one on faith with Jesse Duplantis, and I’d encourage you to go to our website. It’s cost me thousands of dollars to make this available and I’m making it available to you free. If you need prayer today, if you need to receive healing, provision, peace, whatever it is, I wanna encourage you to call us. Or if you wanna become a partner and help us take this message to the world. If you haven’t received Jesus, I don’t wanna leave this broadcast without you praying this prayer with me. 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 I surrender to you in Jesus’ name.

 

  As you grow in wisdom and understanding, you start to get a bigger picture of what God has in store, but you have to see it in your spiritual eyes before you can go there. With Jesus, you have incredible purpose and your future keeps getting brighter. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “Expanding Our Horizons,” a $15 value free of charge. Download it today at CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

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