Loving Life – Part 5 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Welcome, friends of the broadcast. It’s so good to have you today. We’re gonna be talking about today why we can love life. We talked about it this week. God is good, the word is true, Jesus is Lord, and we are blessed. We’re gonna be talking about the blessing of the Lord and what that means. I’m blessed to the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth. Receive God’s word today. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. We’ve been talking all week about loving life, and we’ve really been on the first part of it is what is the foundation in my life that I identified of why I love life. You see, we live in the world, and do you know what? There’s a lot of ungodly stuff. There’s a lot of junk that we have to deal with. In fact, the Bible says that Satan is the god of this world, but at the same point in time, I believe even all that’s going on, we can love life, and I believe the Bible tells us how, and it talks about this in 1 Peter 3, verse 8 through 12, specifically in verse 10, “He who will love life and see good days.” But how can we love life? What is the foundation? We talked about the first aspect of the foundation is that God is a good God, and you need to get in your heart, in your mentality, just this thing that God is good, He’s good all the time, that you know God is not the author of death, destruction, or evil in any way, shape, or fashion, that God is not to blame. I’m not gonna blame God for sickness, death, disease, poverty, lack, anxiety. God is not my problem. He is my answer, and there’s a lot of scriptures. We talked about it. You can go back and review those, actually, teachings on the website if you wanna look at that. That’s in the very first message from this week. The second thing that we identified was that the word of God is true. We got a Bible full of promises that we can believe. All the promises of God in Christ are yes, and in Him, amen. For any problem that I face, I have a promise that is the answer. The third thing that we identified, Aaron, is that Jesus is Lord. I’m so glad, and we talked about three aspects of that. We said, number one, He’s our Lord. Number two, He’s the Lord of eternity. And number three, He is the coming King. Jesus is Lord. Maybe the most powerful statement in all the scriptures. We know it’s the greatest confession that Jesus is Lord. But the last one we’ve been talking about is I am blessed. Praise God. And when you get a revelation of the gospel, you understand that, praise God, that you are blessed in Christ. Every born again believer is blessed. Now, we talked yesterday about the priestly blessing in Numbers chapter six. And then we went on and we talked about Genesis chapter 14. You got a revelation, Aaron, at a young age that you were blessed by the Lord, the possessor of heaven and earth. And that revelation has changed your life. You’re living in that blessing. Praise God, it’s working in your home, working in your marriage, working in your family, working in your house, working in your ministry, working with your children, working in your bank account. Man, the blessing of the Lord, it’ll touch everything, everything you do. But we’re gonna go ahead and we’re gonna talk about that we live under the commanded blessing. And there’s a number of scriptures that talk about the commanded blessing of the Lord. One of them’s in Numbers chapter 25, when it’s talking about the year of jubilee. And you understand that teaching the scripture, Jesus is our jubilee. And in Leviticus 25:21, God said, “I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year and the land will bring forth fruit for three years.” That’s supernatural increase. So I believe that supernatural increase goes with the blessing of the Lord. Another place the Bible talks about the blessing of the Lord and the commanded blessing, Deuteronomy 28. We’ll probably get in that later in this broadcast, but I think it’s Deuteronomy 28, verse eight. God says, “I’m gonna command my blessing on you in your storehouses and in all that you set your hand unto.” Praise God, it’s the commanded blessing of the Lord. Another place the Bible talks about the commanded blessing of the Lord is Psalm 133. In the place of unity, God said, “There’s an anointing that comes down Aaron, down his head, down his beast of the garments.” And that is, “I will command my blessing on you even life forevermore.” But the one we’re gonna talk about right now is in Numbers chapter 23. Let’s go to Numbers 23. Aaron, I want you to read the scripture. I want you to read Numbers 23, verse 19, on down through verse 23. Praise God, the commanded blessing of the Lord. And this is a foreign prophet. In fact, Aaron, you could share about this if you want to. A foreign prophet, Balaam, that has been hired by a foreign king, Balak, to curse the children of Israel. And he comes and doesn’t curse them, he blesses them, not once, not twice. This is the second blessing. But three times he blesses them all together. So go ahead and read in this.

 

  It says here in Numbers 23, verse 19, “God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent. Has he said and will he not do? Or has he spoken and will he not make it good? Behold, I have received a command to bless. He is blessed and I cannot reverse it. He has not observed iniquity in Jacob, nor has he seen wickedness in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. God brings them out of Egypt. He has strength like a wild ox. For there is no sorcery against Jacob, nor any divination against Israel. It now must be said of Jacob and of Israel, oh, what God has done.”

 

  Amen. I believe our lives can be like the lives of Israel. Now, tell us a little bit about Balak and Balaam.

 

  Well, we see something here about the blessing of the Lord that’s really important. You know, we see that the blessing of the Lord cannot be reversed.

 

  Yes.

 

  That means if you, if you know that you’re blessed and you’re blessed through Jesus, and Jesus is the name above every other name, he’s the Lord of Lord, King of kings, if there’s a curse spoken against you, or people come out to curse you or try to 

 

  Yes.

 

  You know, put you down, it won’t work because the blessing of the Lord is greater than any curse. It’s greater than any, you know, sorcery that might’ve been spoken against you. You know, there’s a lot of believers that are really just scared of going to certain areas because, you know, the darkness there, but the light is greater than the darkness. The blessing is greater than the curse. Life is greater than death. As believers, we shouldn’t be trying to hide our light. We should know that our light is greater than the darkness. So let your light so shine among men that they may see, you know, see the glory of God and glorify him, because they’re gonna see what he’s done. They’re gonna see the blessing of the Lord on your life.

 

  Amen.

 

  The blessing of the Lord actually brings glory to God. God wants to bless you. He wants to make you the head and not the tail. He wants to put you above and not beneath. He wants to bless you in your storehouse, and that actually causes people to glorify God.

 

  Amen.

 

  The curse, like being poor and being sick and being defeated, does not cause people to glorify God. It doesn’t point people to God. It doesn’t point people to the Redeemer. Redemption points people to the Redeemer. Being redeemed from the curse of the law points people to who God really is.

 

  Amen. Thank God I’m redeemed. Thank God we are blessed. Now, when the blessing of God, you know, I’ve had people speak things. For instance, Andrew Wommack gave Mom and I a word, and it was in 2005 or 2006. But Andrew gave me this word, and Mom, and he said, “There are five stages in your life.” And he just said, “You know, you’re gonna see five stages in your life in ministry, and you’re in the second stage of a five stage plan that God has for your life in ministry.” And later, during that week, I meditated on it, and I prayed about it. And the Lord showed me the five stages. And he said, number one, the church in Kit Carson where we pastored and we pioneered a church with a group of people from Kit Carson, Colorado. We were there from the year 1988 to the year 2001 for 13 years. We had a physical church built and paid off in 15 months. And during those 13 years, we gave about $50,000 a year to missions and other ministries, which is a huge task in a town of 300. But we were super blessed there. But he said, “That’s the first stage.” The Lord spoke to me, the church in Colorado Springs, Charis Christian Center, where we pastor today is the second stage. He said, “The third stage will have to do more with media ministry.” And you know, we’re still, stages two, three, four, and five I believe are all connected, right? We’re working in all those things. So I believe the last three stages come out or connected with Charis Christian Center, the church here. He said, “The third stage will have more to do with media ministry.” He said, “The fourth stage,” and we’re in this stage right now. He said, “The fourth stage will have to do more with pastors and churches.” Now, I’ve helped build churches in other nations. I’ve helped pay for churches. I’ve helped young men start churches here in the United States of America, some of ’em. I’ve helped ’em get the loans to start those churches. Praise God. I’ve helped leaders of major churches in difficult situations know what to do in those situations. And praise God, but I believe in this last, you know, latter part of our life. You know, we’re gonna have more to do with that. Lester Sumrall actually said that every person kinda has three periods of life. You got up to 30 years of age to learn. Then he says you have the next 30 years. Jesus was 30 when he went into the ministry. David was 30 when he became king over all of Israel. So he says you got first 30 years to learn. You got the next 30 years, he says, to use what you learned. I’m getting ready to go on the third aspect. He said you got the last aspect from 16 and above to give away what you’ve learned. So I trust, he says, and you trust by the time you’re in that third period that people wanna receive what you have to say, praise God. So we’re getting ready to enter into that period, praise God, that third 30 years, praise God. And so anyway, he says, Andrew Wommack said five stages. First stage the Lord identified was Kit Carson. The second stage was the church in Colorado Springs. The third stage was more to do with media ministry and we’re still in that stage, still building that, still working with that. The fourth stage has to do with pastors and churches. And he said the fifth stage will have to do more with Bible school. So we’re working and I was working in all three of those areas, but the media ministry greatly increased after that, the pastor and church thing has greatly increased and continues to increase more and more, praise God. And I believe even the Bible school aspect will increase in the latter years of my life. So thank God, we have a vision and we know where we’re going. And when you know where you’re going, then you can begin to operate in that. It’s good for you to understand what the Lord is doing and then there’s a blessing in that, praise God. And just like you’re talking about, when this blessings on you, praise God, it’s the glory of God for the world to see, praise God. So we’re gonna take a short break. We’re gonna be coming back and we’re gonna talk more about this commanded blessing of God and about the covenant of blessing. We have a covenant of blessing. And when you’re born again, you have a covenant of blessing through Jesus. And we’ll share more about how that works. So stay tuned, we’ll be right back after this break. Hey friend, I have a question for you. Do you love life? I believe that God wants you as a believer to love life, to enjoy living. And I believe that God has given us the keys in his word so that we can do that. So go to our website at Charis Christian Center and download this teaching absolutely free, 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.

 

  Praise the Lord, friends. I’m so glad that you’ve stayed tuned. You know, one teaching I wanna tell you about before we jump into this is I have this teaching on the blessing of the Lord. And you can get that on the internet. You can download it. You can get it in audio version free of charge. And I encourage you to get that. It’ll help you operate in the blessing. Praise God. But we’ve been right here in Numbers 23. And Aaron, you’re talking about when you understand that you’re blessed, it doesn’t matter what anybody else tries to do. The devil can’t reverse the blessing of God. Some wicked prophet of the devil can’t put some curse on you and reverse the blessing of God. The blessing of God is greater than the curse.

 

  Or even just being in the midst of an opposing culture, just as we get closer and closer to the time of Jesus’s return, the world is gonna get darker and darker. We see a lot of Bible prophecy happening right now just where good is called evil and evil is called good. And just this, you know, anti Christ spirits getting bolder and bolder, you know, the anti God. You know, recently I was with you and Jesse and Kathy Duplantis. And they just, Kathy made a statement that just you see a lot of anti God just sentiment and people out there today. And even all this, just woke ism, just even the preferred pronoun thing, like pushing preferred pronouns, like that’s becoming such a norm. But that’s actually an offense to God because he created them, male and female.

 

  That’s correct.

 

  So even if you’re in the midst of an opposing culture, which many of us are, it doesn’t diminish the blessing of the Lord on your life.

 

  Amen. Praise God. I mean, it goes on. It says, you know, this foreign prophet who was hired by a foreign king to curse Israel said, “God has blessed and I cannot reverse it.” What God has said, he’s gonna do. Then he goes on and says, God brought them out of Egypt by the strength of a wild, I mean, supernatural strength. And he said in verse, I love this. He says, “He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob nor seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord God is with him and the shout of a king is.” You know, God sees us through the blood of Jesus and he doesn’t behold our sin and fault and failure. That’s good news. Because if he did, we don’t stand a chance at really operating in this blessing.

 

  So the enemy cannot reverse the blessing of the Lord on your life. But one thing as believers living in the times we live in today, you have to beware the doctrine of Balaam. It talks about this in Revelation. Jesus speaks this to the churches. The doctrine of Balaam is a doctrine of compromise. Being like the world, being like the people who don’t have the blessing of the Lord on them. So we really need to, you know, don’t try to be like the world.

 

  Pergamos was a church, right? Identified, and I believe these churches are different conditions of a church at different times. But it was a very worldly church. We have a situation in Colorado Springs where we have a major government leader that claims to have been a pastor. And yet he owns businesses, you know, that are ungodly. And he has the gay flag hanging in his business and the things that he stands for. And it bothers me that we have lots and lots of people in the church that as soon as this man gets in power, they’re putting him on public platforms, so on and so forth, when the man doesn’t stand for righteousness.

 

  It’s compromise. It’s that doctrine of Balaam. And that’s actually gonna limit, severely limit the blessing of the Lord just at work in your life and in your communities.

 

  Man, I don’t wanna have it in any way. Of course, you know, I’m a stream.

 

  It really goes back to relationships too. You know, Balaam actually told Balak what to do. He said, “You need to get the Israelites “to intermarry with non believers.” And, you know, relationships affect your life.

 

  Right, so Balaam, you know, actually counseled Balak what to do to get the children of Israel to compromise so that they would be cursed rather than blessed. So you don’t wanna operate under the curse. You don’t wanna operate in compromise. But we’re not cursed in Christ, we’re blessed, amen? And if you’re in Christ, you’re blessed. And I don’t, there’s no curse gonna work against me in the name of Jesus.

 

  Now is not the time to compromise. Now is not the time to be lukewarm.

 

  You know, I believe the closer we get to Christ’s coming, it’s gonna be like polar opposites, right? The darkness is gonna get darker, the light is gonna get brighter, and we gotta make a choice. It’s not how close to hell can I live and still make heaven. It’s like, there’s nothing, like Jesse Duplantis preached, “What in hell do you want?” There’s nothing in hell I want, praise God. And I don’t want that lifestyle. I don’t want the lifestyle of the world. I don’t want the lifestyle of the flesh. I wanna let the spirit of God rule me and Jesus be my absolute Lord. I’d be absolute surrender to Jesus and obey him in every area of my life. So it says right here in verse 23, numbers 23, if this would work in the Old Testament, don’t you think it’d work in the New Testament? Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob. There’s neither any divination against Israel. According to this time, it will be said of Jacob in Israel, what has God done? Look what the Lord has done. My goodness, we got the blessing of the Lord, Aaron, working in our life. Isn’t that good?

 

  That’s awesome.

 

  God is so good. Now, not only that, we have a covenant of blessing. I wanna talk about some of these blessings. My daily Bible reading right now as we’re doing these broadcasts is in the book of Deuteronomy. In fact, I was reading this morning, Deuteronomy 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, glory to God. And there was so much as I went through and read those. But in Deuteronomy 28, it’s the first 14 verses talk about the blessing of God. And the last 54 verses, there’s 68 verses talk about the curse. Now I read all of it because I wanna see what I’m redeemed from and I’m redeemed from the curse. So the curse basically has to do with sickness, poverty, right, slavery, and death. So I’m redeemed from the curse of slavery to sin. I’m redeemed from the curse of spiritual death. Jesus was put the last enemy of physical death under his feet when he comes again. I’m redeemed from the curse of sickness. Glory to God, and specific sicknesses, heart disease, weak knees, heart failure, tumors. I’m redeemed from all those things in the name of Jesus. I’m redeemed from poverty in the name of Jesus. God said that the heavens will be brass over you. It’ll rain dirt on you. I grew up in Eastern Colorado. When it’s dry, it blows dirt and kills all the crops. Man, I’m redeemed from the curse, glory to God. And that includes poverty. And he said that you’re gonna be sick and you’re gonna be poor until your enemy takes you over and you’re a slave and you’re gonna die. That is a curse. I’m redeemed from the curse of the law, glory to God, I’m redeemed, amen? From slavery to sin, from spiritual death, and I will be redeemed from physical death when Jesus comes again. I’m redeemed from poverty and I’m redeemed from sickness. That’s right out of the Bible, glory to God. You don’t like it, just read the book. Start believing what the word says instead of some religious nut, glory to God. Now, go over here and read in Deuteronomy 28, the first 14 verses. Aaron, just jump in there and read and say whatever you wanna say, glory to God.

 

  It says, “Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.” I love that, the blessing of the Lord isn’t dependent upon where you live. If it’s dependent on who lives in you.

 

  Amen, praise God, Jesus is the condition of the covenant. This was because of obedience, but we’re blessed in Jesus because Jesus fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law. So Jesus is the condition of the covenant. I love what you said, it’s not because of where you live, it’s because of who lives in you, hallelujah.

 

  Verse four says, “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.” It’s talking about victory.

 

  Amen, my children are gonna be blessed, the fruit of my body, my fields are gonna be blessed. My cattle, my business is gonna be blessed. The flocks of my sheep, I like to say my churches, but see, I personalize this. I had a major mind change years ago. The Lord gave me Deuteronomy 28, the first 14 verses, Psalm 112, the first four verses, Psalm 115, verse nine through 16. And I prayed those for three to six months every day. I would walk around in my church, I would walk around in my house and I would speak those things and it changed my mentality. And all of a sudden believers in church be coming speaking negative things, I wouldn’t even receive them. No, that’s not what the Bible says.

 

  Verse eight says, “The Lord will command the blessing on you and your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand. And he will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.” I love that, God wants to give you ownership.

 

  Yeah.

 

  A lot of people are just in debt and just have a renter’s mentality, but God wants to give you ownership.

 

  Amen.

 

  Maybe that’s a property, maybe it’s land, a house, a vehicle. Some people have never owned anything.

 

  Yeah.

 

  But God wants to give you things and I love that, all to which you set your hand. You need to set your hand to something, do something. Maybe you don’t have a job right now, just get a job, especially young men. And God will get you eventually where you need to go to.

 

  This is a word for somebody, get off your lazy tail and get a job. God will bless the work of your hands. Work is not a curse, it’s a blessing.

 

  Verse nine says, “The Lord will establish you as a holy people to himself, just as he has sworn to you if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord and they shall be afraid of you. The Lord will grant you plenty of goods in your fruit of your body and the increase of your livestock, in the produce of your ground and the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.”

 

  Amen, when you look at this in verse 11, modern English version says, “The Lord will make you overflow in prosperity.” I just love that.

 

  That’s awesome. And I’ll just read the last few verses here. “The Lord will open to you his good treasure, the heavens to give the rain to your land in its season, to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head, not the tail, you shall be above only, not beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today and are careful to observe them. So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day to the right or to the left to go after other gods to serve them.”

 

  Praise the Lord, God bless you. I want you to remember, we love you. Don’t think I’m being hard, I’m just telling you the truth. Some people wanna be blessed and they don’t wanna work. And the Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 3 verse 10, it was my daddy’s favorite scripture. “If you don’t work, you won’t eat.” You know, I was just with Jesse Duplantis, that man works night and day. And he is so blessed, he’s not doing it for the money. He’s doing it for the kingdom. Praise God.

 

  Should not be idle.

 

  Now, praise God. I just wanna share with you really quickly before we go off there. If you don’t have a church home, if you don’t have a church family, if you’re in the Colorado Springs area, we’d love to have you at church. Or if you’re somewhere else and you can’t physically be here, you can live stream our services at charischristiancenter.com. I wanna just say, have a blessed weekend and we’d love to see you at Charis 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 is the author of life and every gift from him is perfect and good. If you have breath in your lungs, you have a reason to rejoice. You can love life because God is good. His word is always true. Jesus is Lord and his blessing is upon you. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “Loving Life.” A $20 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.