Set A Date To Celebrate – Part 5 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today. This is our final broadcast on this message that my son, Aaron, recently taught in the church, and it’s been so encouraging. I’ve heard so many compliments. You ought to go and check it out on the website. Just get the single message that he taught on a Sunday morning on Set a Date to Celebrate. But you wanna realize the joy of the Lord is your strength. Be blessed today through the Word.

 

  Hi, everyone. Welcome to “Grace for Today.” I’m Pastor Aaron Perdue. I’m here with my dad, Pastor Lawson Perdue. We are here at Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. You’re always welcome to join us if you’re here in Colorado Springs for a service. We have services every Sunday morning, also Wednesday nights. You can also live stream, but in person is always great if you happen to be in Colorado. It’s a great place to visit as well. But we’ve been sharing this week on a message I did entitled, Set a Date to Celebrate. And I believe that’s a word of the Lord For many of you watching this right now, set a date to celebrate. And we’ve just been talking about how to celebrate God’s goodness and just the importance of that. Today, specifically, we’re gonna be sharing this point that you need to get your joy back. Some of you just need to get your joy back. God is a joy giver.

 

  Joy comes in the morning. God wants to give joy. And the devil is a joy stealer. You know, I think one of the main things he wants to steal in believers’ life is their joy because the joy of the Lord is their strength.

 

  Right. You know, I think it was Jerry Savelle years ago said, “You know, if the devil can’t steal your joy, he can’t keep your goods.” But there’s a lot of people have let the devil rob them. And, you know what, we don’t wanna let the devil steal our joy. And if you don’t let the devil, joy is really an expression of faith. And when you’re living in faith, Amen, you’re gonna operate in joy. You know, Kenneth E Hagin said this. He said, “I can tell when I pray for people, the people that have received and the people that haven’t.” And he said, “The primary way that I can tell is the people that have received, they start rejoicing.” Amen. And if you just go out and, you know, sad face hanging down look, you need to notify your face of what took place in your spirit. Jesus, the Lord of lord, the King of kings, lives in you, the resurrected Lord of eternity. And if you don’t have anything else to be happy for, you could be happy because Jesus is your Lord. The Bible says, “Happy is the people whose God is the Lord.” And if you’re saved, you ought to be happy. Praise God.

 

  Someone came up for prayer to my wife, Heather, a few weeks ago, and she was praying because she had a tiny home for sale that she just couldn’t sell. You know, a lot of people watch these shows on television and on, you know, whatever about tiny homes and how it’s so amazing to have a tiny home, and, anyways, they bought a tiny home and needed to sell it and just was having a really hard time selling it. It had been for sale for a long time and just wasn’t getting anywhere. And she said, “You know what, whenever you feel frustrated about this, whenever you’re, you know, just feeling beat up about this, you just need to start laughing, just rejoicing, just praising God.” And, you know, this person did that and the thing went under contract within a week.

 

  Hallelujah.

 

  And God just worked it out. You know, the person buying it didn’t have the money to buy it. They only needed 10,000 for a down payment. They couldn’t do that, but someone actually gave that person the 10,000 for the down payment, so they were able to put it under contract.

 

  Man, just start laughing at the devil, you know?

 

  After I preached this message at church, there was a newcomer who came up, you know, a young woman who was just very, very, you know, just dealing with a lot, I could tell. And she said, “Well, I’m a seer. I just see things spiritually and I’m just always being attacked by the devil.” And I just said, “The devil is a complete whimp. He’s a complete, you know, just complete loser. And if he’s making you feel this way, you just start laughing.” I just said, “If you start feeling like you’re beat up, depressed,” I said, “you just start laughing.” I just said-

 

  You’re seeing the wrong thing.

 

  Yeah, I said, “You just look at Jesus and you start laughing, you start rejoicing.” And I said, “I guarantee that the devil is gonna run away. He cannot stand it when you’re laughing. He cannot stand the joy of the Lord. Man, the devil, that is one thing he cannot stand, is the joy of the Lord. When you start operating in that, start laughing. I said, “You could be in your car at a stoplight, just laugh like a crazy person. Make people around you look at you in your car thinking you’re crazy.”

 

  And she started smiling. She started lightening up. And she said, “Well, you know, I’ve dealt with a lot of depression throughout my life.” And I said, “You just-

 

  “Tap into the joy of the Lord. Get your joy back.”

 

  The devil is a joy thief.

 

  You know, last week, I just went through this excruciating painful deal, you know, and we were hoping for good but it didn’t work out good, but God gave me the word before we went into it. That word is still true. God hasn’t changed that word. And, you know, I had, one day, I just started rejoicing, glorifying God, magnifying God. I didn’t get mad at anybody, didn’t get upset. I think these people were marveling that I wasn’t even upset about it. But then in the night, I had to fly out over the weekend and preach in another church. And in the night while I was in the hotel, God just, He just started downloading information to me by the Holy Spirit about how to handle it, how to deal with it. And in the morning, He gave me a scripture, told me that we we’re still in charge. We still have authority. God hasn’t left us. And I just, in the night, I just started laughing and rejoicing and glorifying God. Amen. And, you know what? We’re gonna move through it, we’re gonna move into the victory. And I’m telling you, it is literally, absolutely no problem. Amen. And, you know, if you’re saved, hallelujah, you know, I love something RW Schambach used to say. He said, “You don’t have any problem, all you need is faith in God.” And, you know, people would criticize RW for saying that. And I remembered RW Schambach came, he had a tremendous healing ministry, saw thousands of people saved and healed and filled with the Holy Ghost, set free. But RW, in fact, I tell you this one testimony before I finished this story about how you don’t have any problem, all you need in faith is faith in God. He went to India one time and was having a crusade, and there were like thousands and thousands of people there. And they weren’t getting a lot of results. And so he just told, he said, “I want every blind person in this crusade to come forward.” And there were like 10 people that came forward that were completely blind. And he said, “Now, I’m going to pray for you in the name of Muhammad.” And he went down and none of them were healed. And then the interpreter was looking at him where he said, “Now, I’m gonna pray for you in the name of Jesus.” And he went down and prayed for all 10 of them, and nine of them were healed instantly when he prayed for them in the name of Jesus. And they’re blinds, all nine outta 10 of them got their sight immediately. Praise God. And that thing just broke out, and he had great miracles. But RW Schambach would travel on the East Coast. He would have big tent crusades and, you know, big giant tents with a lot of people. And it took a whole crew of people to take care of it. But anyway, he was in New York and he was holding his two-week crusade, and there was a man that came to him beforehand and said, “Listen, I wanna provide all the food after the meetings for the people, you know, that are working, that are helping.” And it take over 100 people just to run his meeting, and it’s a lot of food, a lot of money. And so RW said, “Well, I guess you could do that.” But anyway, the man told him his testimony and he was actually Catholic. And he was lying in the hospital dying, and the priest came in in the evening, dressed in black to give him his last rites. And they expected he’d be dead before morning. And he said, “When the priest walked out dressed in black, another priest walked through the wall dressed in white.” And he said, he told this man, “You don’t have any problem. All you need is faith in God.” Praise God. And he told him to get up and get dressed and clean himself up. And he got up and went and shaved himself and cleaned himself up and got dressed and walked out of that hospital healed. That was Jesus the great high priest of the church. Praise God. He is the great high priest. We are a priesthood of believers. And it totally transformed this man’s life, and He was so grateful. And so when you begin to see who Jesus is, that He is the resurrected Lord of eternity, and then you begin to realize that He is living in you, you got a reason to rejoice. Amen.

 

  Amen. So you need to get your joy back.

 

  Hallelujah.

 

  The devil is a thief. He wants to steal your joy. And because that’s, the joy of the Lord is your strength. We saw that in Nehemiah chapter 8, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” And, you know, I love what Jesus says in John 10:10. This is a one of the greatest statements that every bit of doctrine in theology should pass.

 

  You know, “The thief comes not except to steal, to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.” So if it’s stealing, killing, destroying, that’s the devil. But if it’s giving you life, you know, Jesus said, “I came to give you life And that you might have it more abundant.” You know, our God is a God of abundance. He’s a God of more than enough. He is El Shaddai, the God of more than enough. And-

 

  So there’s a really simple doctrine test right here. If it’s good, it comes from God. If it’s evil, it comes from the devil. Amen. God does only good, every good. “And every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” That’s James 1:17. Verse 16 says, “Do not err, don’t move from this.” So listen, if it’s, has to do with death and destruction, it cannot be from God because God has nothing that’s destruction and death to give, period.

 

  Yeah, and some of you just need to really, God’s kinda shown me this about the blessing of the Lord, but you need to own. Have a sense of ownership about the things that God has given you.

 

  Yeah, if Jesus paid for it for you, you need to have a sense of ownership about it. You need to own the righteousness He’s purchased for you, you need to own your salvation, you need to own, you know, the joy he’s given you, you need to own the peace He’s given you, you need to own the healing He’s given you. And a lot of people just try to come to God with like a borrowed sense of righteousness. Like, “I’m just gonna come to God once in a while. I’m just gonna borrow this access to God.” Or, “I’m just gonna borrow, you know, a little bit of joy.” But no, He has given you joy, you need to have a sense of ownership about it. And when you have a sense of ownership about something, you’re not gonna let it be robbed from you.

 

  You’re not gonna let it be stolen from you. If the devil tries to steal it, you’re gonna do something about it.

 

  Because it’s yours. It’s your right to it. You own it. And I’m gonna share this story with you, but years ago, it’s about 10 years ago, I was living in Houston at the time, going to Rice University working on my doctorate. And I was on a bike ride for exercise and I was coming back to my apartment and the mailman was there, you know, at the lobby of the apartment. So I just left my bike out in front of the building and I went, you know, to talk to the middleman ’cause at the time, I was buying and selling watches on eBay to make money and God had blessed me with a business to do that. And he had two packages for me, I was really excited. You know, every day was like Christmas, I’d get these packages. And so I was holding these two packages, you know, and I was wearing my bike helmet still and my, you know, cycling attire. And out of the corner of my eye while I was talking to the mailman, I saw someone take off on my bike. And I said, “That guy took my bike.” And I ran out there and started chasing after this guy, you know, with two packages in my hand. And, you know these packages, like each watch was worth like $1,000 each. And I was chasing after this guy who stole my $100 Craigslist bike, but I was doing that because that was my bike.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And, you know, I just got hit with a sudden burst of adrenaline, and, you know, the righteous are bold as lions, the wicked flee when no one pursued, but the righteous are bold as lions. So I was going after this guy. You know, my apartment complex was on a busy street, Bellaire Boulevard in Houston, Texas. You know, it’s three lanes on each side, and it was just slammed with traffic. It’s close to the medical center. And he was going against traffic and he saw, you know, behind this 140 pound red-headed crazy, you know, guy chasing after him, screaming at him. And he ended up playing Frogger, just trying to drive across the six lanes of traffic to get away from me. I eventually chased him and I ran after him. Later, I Google map this, but I chased him for almost an entire mile. And right when I was about ready to just give up, I like leaned over, just purely exhausted. And, you know, this minivan pulled up and this Texas soccer mom who’d seen what was going on, just rolled down her window and she said, “Get in the van and we’re gonna get your bike.” So I got in the van, and the guy didn’t see me get in this van. And she followed him into this neighborhood. And I said, “As soon as you get close to that guy, I’m gonna jump out and just cream this guy.” I set my helmet, down these packages. I said, “Please don’t run off with these things.” And, you know, we got kind of close and I just, I think the van was still rolling, I opened the door and just ran after that guy. And I was gonna just like fly through the air like a missile and just nail him. But thankfully, you know, probably an angel of the lord helped him, he looked back and saw me just about ready to come up on him and cream him, and he jumped off the bike and just ran. And, you know, I got my bike back. There were actually like four other cars that were behind this minivan, you know, kind of going after this guy. You know, there’s a song out there right now, a country Western song that’s kind of controversial. It’s called “Try That in a Small Town.”

 

  And it’s like, don’t try it in Houston, Texas either ’cause even those minivan soccer moms, you know, they don’t like seeing, you know, kids getting robbed and innocent people getting, you know, hurt and things. So they actually, these Texan people kept calling that guy and were calling the cops, and the cops eventually caught him and they were really happy ’cause he was a really bad criminal. They arrested him, put him in jail ’cause he just had a whole list of offenses. And I got my bike back. I went back to my apartment complex. This is like 20 minutes later.

 

  And the mailman was still there. He was wanting to wait to see what happened. And I went to the enemy’s camp and I took back.

 

  Yeah, you gotta take back what he stole from you.

 

  You gotta take it back. So you need to get your joy back.

 

  Because the devil is a thief and he is a liar. We’re gonna take a short break and we’ll be right back after this. Stay tuned. We’ve got some more great stuff to tell you. Praise God. God is good. Blessings. Friends, I hope you’re enjoying the teaching today. This came from a message that my son, Aaron, taught on Sunday morning, Set a Date to Celebrate. I have heard so many compliments. So many people have told me how much this encouraged them, how much this helped them. So I want you to go to our website and you can download either the audio or the video of that single message. I believe it will bless you.

 

  I just had a brother-in-law who went into a coma, and I asked this group of women to please gather around me, pray. I had heard, and I think it was Lawson who had said this, “Sometimes to just imagine what it is you are praying for.” Not only did he wake up, but the songs we sang over him, he woke up singing. Our family, I don’t think has ever seen a miracle like this.

 

  Praise the Lord. Aaron’s been talking about getting your joy back. You know, the Bible says that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but it’s righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. And when you have the righteousness of Jesus, you ought to have the peace of God and let the joy of God really rule your life. Amen?

 

  I love that. You know, the joy of the Holy Ghost, that’s something that happens with the Holy Ghost. You know, some people are actually offended by the joy of the Holy Ghost.

 

  They see people laughing sometimes. It’s like not a natural thing.

 

  Amen.

 

  It’s almost like praying in tongues, but it’s a laughter type thing. Some people are offended by that.

 

  Oh, that happened to me the other night after this great difficulty for a week. In the middle of the night, the spirit of joy hit me. And I started laughing and laughing. You know, a few years ago, Mark Hankins was here. We’d had a lot of difficulties with just people, that’s just being in church and dealing with the, as a church leader sometimes. But while Mark Hankins was here and he was sharing, you know, the spirit of joy hit me, and I just started laughing and laughing and laughing. And, you know, I probably laughed for two or three minutes. And it was not normally me. It was the joy of the Holy Ghost. And God just healed a lot of things in my spirit. And Aaron, you just talked about that. And some people, I think, you know, people filmed this-

 

  The joy of the Holy Ghost.

 

  Put it on the internet and some people said, “That’s the demonic.” But you know, Paul had a great difficulty at Antioch and the religious people ran him out of town. And it says, you know, in Acts 13:52, the disciples, you know, Paul just, they wiped the dust off their feet. It was Paul and Silas and different ones, and they were filled with the Holy Ghost and joy.

 

  And joy, and joy.

 

  And, you know, he went to the next town and they ran him out of town. He went to the next town, they ran him out. He was having great revival, and they ran him out of town and stoned him and left him dead. And the disciples just joined around him and raised him up from the dead. And, you know what he did? He turned around and went right back. You can read about this in Acts 13 and 14, went right back where he just preached, where they just ran him out of town, where they just, you know, stirred up all kind of, you know, strife and all kind of envy and bitter and challenges, and he kept preaching. There was nothing. Paul was persistent, praise God. And he just wouldn’t let go. But one thing that I believe helped him was he was filled with joy and the Holy Ghost. And, you know what? If you’re not filled with the Holy Ghost and joy, you need to get filled with the Holy Ghost and joy.

 

  Amen. Get your joy back.

 

  The devil is a joy thief. God is a joy giver.

 

  Joy comes.

 

  It comes.

 

  I’m glad that the morning,, it happens frequently. God is gonna frequently give you reasons to joys, give you joy. And joy is so important. I love what Isaiah says in Isaiah 12:1-3, I wanna read these entirety of these three verses here. It says, “And in that day you will say, ‘O Lord, I will praise You. Though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away and You comfort me.” And we said this earlier this week, but God is not mad at you. And there, I’m always really shocked at how many believers, even very notable, very famous ministers I’ve met and heard minister who just, I think they think that God’s just mad at them all the time.

 

  But God is not mad at you. He actually wants to comfort you when you come to Him. He wants you to come to Him and He’ll comfort you. He’ll help you. And verse 2 says, “Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust, and not be afraid.”

 

  You don’t need to be afraid, certainly of God, but you don’t need to be afraid of anything. You know, the Bible says 365 times, fear not.

 

  Fear not. Jesus would say, “Fear not.” “I will trust and not be afraid for Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song.” I love that He’s my song. He gives me a reason to sing. “He has become my salvation. Therefore, with joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” Now, Jesus would talk about how He would place in us this eternal life it’d be like a well springing up into everlasting life. And how, and that, if you’re a believer, if you’ve asked Jesus into your life, if you’ve made Him your Lord, made Him your Savior, that well that springs up to everlasting life, it is on the inside of you, it is in your spirit and the way that you draw from that.

 

  You might not feel it in your emotions, you might not feel it in your soul, but that’s deep within you. The way you draw that out is with a bucket of joy.

 

  Just like a well, you gotta draw out of it. If you wanna get better water, you draw a little deeper. So get more joy, a bigger bucket, and go a little deeper. And you’re gonna be able to draw from that water of salvation.

 

  Yeah, joy comes when you focus on the Lord, when you focus on Jesus, when you keep your eyes on Him, when you keep your eyes on the promises, on the Word of God, right? You know, the Bible talks about in the Old Testament how David encouraged himself in the Lord. And, you know, David was out, you know, fighting the battle and the other enemies, he was fighting with the Philistines and because, you know, he’d been rejected by Saul and he came back to town, Ziklag. And when he got back to Ziklag, the place of utter destruction, the Amalekites had come and they’d taken their wives, they’d taken their goods, and they ran off. And, you know, even the people that were with David were speaking about stoning him. But the Bible says that David encouraged himself in the Lord. And you can encourage yourself in the Lord by focusing on the Word of God, by praying in the Holy Spirit, by praising God, by glorifying God, by focusing on the good. You can encourage yourself. And you don’t have to let the devil rob you and take what’s yours. You know, a lot of people just say, “Whatever will be, will be.” And they face a little problem and they think, “Well, that must have been the will of God.” I’m telling you, there’s not only God, there’s a devil. There’s a heaven to gain, there’s a hell to shun. There’s a God that’s for you, there’s a devil that’s against you. That’s simple Bible doctrine. I can prove it over and over again. But if you’ve lost a battle, realize you haven’t lost the war. Praise God. So get up. Start rejoicing, start glorifying God, start focusing on the promise, start magnifying Jesus. Amen. Start praising God and see how fast that God will turn. You are the ones who turn the battle at the gate. The Lord gave this scripture to me the other day just after this instance when He woke me up in the night and I started rejoicing, you know. And I was going to a church and preach and I’d already prepared, I’d already been up for 4 1/2 hours, but God just, I flopped open the Gideon Bible. I already had my Bible packed and ready to go to this meeting, and God gave me this scripture in Isaiah 28:6. And it actually says this. It says, “And for a spirit of judgment to him that sits in judgment.” Some people think that’s only God, but actually, God establishes His judgment through us. We have authority on the earth in the name of Jesus. “And for strength them who turn back the battle at the gate.” And God said, “You have the ability to turn the situation and for strength them that turn back.” And man, God gave, and you talk about encouragement. Man, I was encouraged. You can be encouraged by the word, encouraged by the Spirit, encouraged, hallelujah, by all these different things as you focus on Jesus and glorify God. And you all have a, if you’re saved, you got a reason to rejoice. And if you’re not saved, you ought to get saved. Praise the Lord.

 

  That’s awesome. So I hope you’ve enjoyed, you know, this week of broadcast. If you’ve just joined us today and have missed some of the others, I encourage you to watch the entire week. This week’s broadcast, it’s actually came from a message I preached on a Sunday morning. You can actually go and find that message. It’s called Set a Date to Celebrate. And, you know, if you go to our website, you can actually download all of our television teachings on this as well. But I believe that’s a word of the Lord for many of you to set a date to celebrate.

 

  Praise God.

 

  And then keep looking ahead, realize that, man, God’s favor is for life. God is still full of surprises here. He must just surprise you with good things.

 

  Amen.

 

  And you need to taste and see that the Lord is good.

 

  Amen.

 

  And also, go and get your joy back.

 

  You know, the Bible says, you know, thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph in Christ Jesus. Amen. We can always triumph. The Bible says, “‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment, you will condemn for your righteousness is of Me,’ says the Lord.” The Bible says, “Greater is he that’s in you than he that’s in the world.” The Bible says, you know, “This is the victory that overcomes the world even our faith. Who is he that overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the son of God.” And so we’ve got all these promises, and if you’ll start focusing on the promises, you don’t have to stay down. Amen. If you start praying in the Holy Ghost, you don’t have to stay down. If you’ll start looking at what God has given you, you don’t have to stay down. Amen. And God doesn’t want to you to let the devil run over you and have a heyday in your life, but you’ve got to make a choice to believe Him.

 

  Amen. So if you’ve enjoyed this teaching, we actually have made it available free of charge. You can go to our website and download it. We actually have hundreds of teachings available for a free download. Our partners have enabled us to do this, to take these teachings and make them free of charge through our website. We also have a great app. You can go to your app store on your phone and get Charis Christian Center, just a great app, a great way to stay in tune with what’s happening with the ministry here. And we hope this message has blessed you. Thanks for joining us. We love you, God does too.

 

  Amen. If you’re in church or in Colorado Springs this Sunday, join us for church, 8:30 or 10:30 AM. Thanks and blessings.

 

  God is not mad at you. He’s not a joy stealer. He’s a joy giver. Now is the time to taste and see that the Lord is good. Because of Jesus, you have a reason to set a date to celebrate. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, Set a Date to Celebrate, a $5 value free of charge. Download it today at CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

  Friends, the scripture says, “If you will continue in the Word of God, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” If you go to our website at CharisChristianCenter.com, you can get all of our materials there on the website as you watch them, as you listen absolutely free of charge, and we’ve done that just to be a blessing to you. And I believe that the word that has freed me will free you. Blessings.

 

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