A farmer goes about his normal business while the seed grows. In the same way, we also enter into the rest of God while the promises grow in our heart. In The Violent Take It By Force part 5, Ashley and Carlie explain the role of time and rest in receiving from God. You will be empowered to win by faith!
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The primary scriptures explored in this teaching are Mark 4:26-29 and 2 Timothy 2:6.
Transcription
Ashley: Hello, and welcome to the Abundant Life program. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Praise God. We’re actually in the middle of a series. We’re looking at how the violent take it by force. This is taken from Matthew 11:11-12. This is Jesus speaking. And he says that the violent take it by force. The first thing we looked at a few programs ago was how that we as born again, new covenant believers, are more equipped, have the Holy Spirit, have the full word of God, have our prayer language, have the church, have Christ in us, all these things, we’re more equipped than all the Old Testament heroes.
Carlie: Wow, and they accomplished a lot.
Ashley: They accomplished a lot. So in Matthew 11:11, Jesus starts off by saying, “Assuredly, those were born amongst women there has no risen one greater than John the Baptist, but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” What Jesus is saying here is that if you’re a born again believer today, if you’re a new covenant believer, which you can’t be an old covenant born again believer, I guess. If you’re a new covenant, born again believer today, you have more than the Old Testament heroes. And if you need that explaining, then go back and watch the previous episodes. But I’m telling you, you are fully equipped.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: As a believer today, you are fully equipped. You have the Holy Spirit indwelling you. You have the full word of God. You have your prayer language. You have a church to be a part of. You have Christ in you, the hope of glory. You had all these things, have all these things that the Old Testament believers never had. So praise God, you are fully equipped. And then the next verse Jesus says here, he says, “And since the days of John the Baptist, until now,” This is verse 12, “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.”
What he was talking about is being violent in our faith, having a violent faith. Not necessarily talking about violent and chopping people’s heads off.
Carlie: But faith isn’t passive, is it?
Ashley: Even though they did in the old testament. They did chop heads.
Carlie: It was pretty gruesome.
Ashley: It was pretty gruesome. But the point is, is the word violent here, if you study it out, talks about to press into, to surround yourself, to push into, to pursue, to grasp ahold of. What we’re looking at is, even though God has provided everything for us, grace, what Jesus did on death, burial, and resurrection, he provided everything for you. He provided your righteousness. He provided your provision. He provided your healing. He provided your peace of mind. Everything, praise God, you need is in Christ. He provided it for you. You already have it.
So that’s the grace part. But our part by faith is to exercise that or grasp ahold of that, or take that by force, praise God. It’s up to you to take it by force. It’s up to you to reach out and receive the promises of God.
Carlie: Yeah. We need to put the amen to God’s yes.
Ashley: That’s right. Yeah. All the promises of God are yes and amen. He’s already set them up. All we have to say is, “Yes, I agree, Lord. I take them,” praise God. So that’s why the violent take it by force. We looked at the example of the woman and the issue of blood.
Carlie: Yes.
Ashley: And she was violent her face because she pressed into the crowd.
Carlie: She had to go beyond her comfort zone, go to somewhere where maybe she shouldn’t have been in the first place, and really take ahold of and put her faith, peg her faith, to stick it to the ground, if you like. Grab hold of that tassel and say, “I’m taking that. That’s mine.”
Ashley: Yep. I’m taking it. It’s mine. And that’s the type of attitude we should have. The promises of God have got your name on them.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: You need to say, “That’s mine, I’m having it. I’m taking it.” You need to take back what the devil has been trying to steal from you. And you know what? It’s yours.
Carlie: I like that.
Ashley: It’s got your name on it. Take it back.
Carlie: Let’s take back what the devil stole.
Ashley: Amen. Take it back.
Carlie: I like that.
Ashley: So that was what we was looking at. And then we looked at II Timothy chapter two. If you got your Bible, II Timothy chapter two. We looked at Paul’s advice, the apostle Paul’s advice, to Timothy his spiritual son. And he gives some great advice here in the first few verses. And then right here in, I believe it was verse five. He starts to use illustrations, or verse four it starts. He uses three examples of how we can practically walk out our faith or work out our faith. So we need to work at our faith. We need to actually know-
Carlie: You might want to explain that a little bit. Working out your faith or the West. People get hung up on it.
Ashley: They think it’s about works and you’ve got to work to it. First of all, you can’t work to make God do anything. God’s already done it. I remember in the old days, in the old days, back in the old days.
Carlie: Back in the day.
Ashley: I was one of these people that believed that I prayed hard enough, I could move the arm of God.
Carlie: You’re going to move God, especially if you have the prayer chain. Did you do the prayer chain?
Ashley: Going to move the arm of God. We’re going to upset some people here.
Carlie: This is some sacred cows. I can hear them mooing already.
Ashley: Sacred cows are mooing.
Carlie: They’re dying, but just because we have lots of people praying for us doesn’t mean that we are trying to persuade God to move on our behalf. God is already good. God is crazy about you. He loves you. Jesus has done the hard part. He’s already provided all these things that Ashley is talking about. But yet, sometimes we get into this mentality that if we call the prayer chain, if we have 200 people praying for us, then somehow we’re going to convince God to act on our behalf when really he’s already acted.
Ashley: So this is what I used to think. I had this picture of God, he’s not sure. He’s got his arms crossed. He’s not sure, but he’s like, “Oh, well go on then. Since you’ve got so many people …”
Carlie: Because you’re so popular.
Ashley: ” … And you’ve badgered me so much. And you’ve put so much pressure on me, I’m going to move.” No. That’s not our God, God our father is a loving God. He only has good things for his children. And he loves you. He’s waiting to work on your behalf. I’m telling you, he is so excited about you succeeding. This is the God that, Zephaniah, I believe it’s Zephaniah 3:17. He dances over you and rejoices over you with singing.
Carlie: Amen. That’s in the Old Testament.
Ashley: I’m going to read that. That’s a great verse. But this is Old Testament stuff. This is great. I’m telling you, God is a God of love. And he loves his people. He is not a stubborn God waiting for maybe he’ll move if enough people pray. I know I may have offended you talking about … or Carlie’s offended you. It wasn’t me. Blame Carlie.
Carlie: I’ll be the bad cop today.
Ashley: Talking about prayer changing things. And we’re not saying ditch all your prayer chains. What we’re saying is if our attitude or our motivation behind a prayer chain is that if we have more people praying, God’s more likely to move, then that’s a wrong motivation. God has already moved 2000 years ago. He sent his best. He sent his son and he’s already paid the price for everything you need. It’s a done deal. He’s already done it. Praise God. Now our part to walk out our faith or to work out our faith is just to appropriate what’s already been done. It’s just to receive it.
Carlie: To respond in faith.
Ashley: It’s a response in faith. God’s done his part by grace, which is 99.99909% of it. Our little tiny percent, I don’t know what that would be. 0.000001% job is to receive it by faith. I use the illustration in a previous episode, if you buy your child a gift, you go out to the store, you buy it, you put it under the Christmas tree, you wrap it up and you put their name on it. When they come and take that gift from under the tree and unwrap it, they can’t say, “Well, my parents made me work for this gift. I had to work this gift.” No, they just have to unwrap it. That’s the only work we had to do. And that’s why it talks about, like in James 2:20 James, 2:20 says that faith without works, or faith without corresponding actions, is dead.
It doesn’t mean you have to work to prove your faith. It means that because God’s already done it, because we have faith in what’s already been done, we’re going to act towards that. We’re going to have some corresponding actions. If you really believe something, it’s going to change how you live. It’s going to change how you act. I just wanted to read this verse randomly, Zephaniah 3:17, because it’s so cool. It says, “The Lord your God is in your midst. The mighty one will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.”
Someone needs to hear this today. God is not a God up in heaven with his arms crossed who just about tolerates you. God is a God who loves you. And the reason he loves you isn’t because of all the lovely things you’ve done. Isn’t because of …
Carlie: It’s not because you’re lovely.
Ashley: It’s not because you’re lovely. He loves you because you are his child. And he loves his children. So it’s a positional truth. You’re his child, and he loves you and he sings over you. He rejoices over you. I’m going to embarrass myself a little bit now, but I’ll say it. 19 years ago, we had our first baby and I rejoiced over it. I used to look at him asleep. He didn’t do anything. All he did was poop and eat and cost me money.
Carlie: Messed up the whole apartment. He didn’t even move yet.
Ashley: Cost me money. Messed up my wife’s hair after childbirth and all that. I remember [inaudible].
Carlie: Thank you. Go easy there, Honey.
Ashley: He hadn’t done anything for me. He was a newborn baby just a few hours old. Yet I would look at him and I would just feel this excitement. If you’re a parent, maybe you felt some of that excitement about your baby, who hasn’t done anything for you. Can’t do anything for you. What he can do is rob you of sleep, rob you of your sanity and rob you of your money. But we love them, right? Because why? Because positionally, they’re our children. Well, that’s just a tiny picture of how much God loves you. Because you’re his child, he loves you. That’s the reason why he loves you.
And you need to hear this today. I know your feelings, your mind, your will, your emotions might be telling you otherwise, but I’m here to tell you the truth is God loves you. He went to the cross and died for you in your place. And he is passionately in love with you. He’s a God who really wants to pursue a relationship with you. Praise God. So maybe you don’t even have that relationship with Jesus. Maybe you haven’t given your heart to the Lord yet. I know this program goes out to literally hundreds of millions of households around the world. So I don’t want to take anything for granted. Maybe you haven’t made Jesus the Lord of your life. I’m here to tell you, you can do that right now.
All you have to do is say, “Jesus, I believe that you are real. I believe that you’re alive. And I want you to be the Lord in my life.” Praise God. In fact, let me offer this. I wasn’t planning to do any of this. But Hey, this is our program, right? We can do what we want to do.
Carlie: Do it.
Ashley: So if that is you, then go to our website right now, the instruction on the screen, we’ll give you this book and this will explain to you how to be born again and how to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I don’t take anything for granted. I know the majority of our viewers already have Jesus as their Lord and Savior. But if you haven’t, go ahead and do that right now, and all you got to do is pray that prayer and believe with your heart. Then go to our website, get one of these books. It will explain what just happened to you. Praise God. Let someone know if you’ve made Jesus your Lord for the first time, praise God.
Carlie: Amen. Let us know.
Ashley: Awesome. Amen. Let us know to know.
Carlie: We’d love to know.
Ashley: Let us know. Find a good church and find some other fellow believers. Praise God. So anyway, that’s a little rabbit trail there, but a good rabbit trail.
Carlie: That was a good one.
Ashley: Praise the Lord. I believe people have been born again all around the world. Isn’t good good? So Paul is giving advice here to Timothy. He used these three examples. We’ve already looked at the example of a soldier. So the first example he gives is of a soldier. A soldier doesn’t get entangled with the menial things of the world. He doesn’t get in entangled.
Carlie: They stay focused.
Ashley: He stays focused on the bigger picture. He doesn’t get entangled in life’s everyday things, mundane things. And he’s also part of a bigger picture. He’s part of a unit. He hasn’t got his own identity anymore, if you like. So he’s just part of a bigger unit. He’s part of a, what is they, battalions?
Carlie: Could be.
Ashley: Troops.
Carlie: Unit?
Ashley: What are they, units? I don’t know. I don’t know the technical terms for these things. But anyway, they are part of something bigger than themselves. They take orders. They understand authority. So they are soldiers, are someone who listened to commands and they don’t take their own feelings and their own emotions into account. So they’re told, “You’ve got to march over here,” they just do it because they know they’re part of something bigger. They can’t just say, “I don’t want to do that. I want to do my individual thing today.” Then that’s not going to work because they’re part of something bigger.
We, as the body of Christ, are part of something bigger than just us individually. We make up the body of Christ, praise God. And we talked about how important it is to get around like-minded believers to realize that … deny your own flesh sometimes. Deny your own feelings. If you don’t feel like standing on the word of God, if you don’t feel like confessing the word, then you know what? Push through and say, “No, I’m going to do this.” And that’s some of the attributes or the … what’s the right words? The good things about a soldier.
Carlie: Right? And the other thing I’m thinking about is because we’ve submitted to the authority of Jesus, that gives us authority. Just like the soldier, he’s under the authority of his leadership, he also has authority. James 4:7 says, “Submit to God, resist the devil. And he’ll flee from us.” Being people that are under authority gives us in ourselves authority.
Ashley: Amen. That’s good. That’s good. Like the centurion. He said, “I know I’m a man under authority.” But he also could give orders. So praise God. So that was the example that Paul used as a soldier. And then he used the example of an athlete, which I think is great because it balances out the soldier deal, because some people say, “I’m my own person,” and everything else, and we know you are. But these are two contrasts, if you like. An athlete is all about his individual. He’s got a train himself. He’s responsible for himself. He’s got to keep himself self-motivated and all that. And it’s much more about him getting ready for the race, him preparing. It’s talking about how he prepares and how he runs by the rules. There’s certain rules you have to run by. There’s certain principles, if you like, we have to follow. And then you gave the example about the spectators, not getting distracted with spectators.
Carlie: You got to run your own race. You got to run your race, keep going, keep focused, have the finish line in mind, and be prepared. We talked about how you can’t just eat hamburgers and then go run a race the next day. You have to train for it. You have to be prepared and be ready for it.
Ashley: Yeah, we talked about how important an athlete’s diet is. And we wasn’t talking about literally your diet, the foods you eat, although we could go there. We won’t go there. But we was talking about what do you let in? What thoughts do you let in? What are you watching? What are you listening to? Jesus said, “Be careful how you hear.” An athlete can’t just take in any food he wants. He can’t take in all this junk food.
Carlie: He has to be selective.
Ashley: Yeah. And then he has to be very intentional about what he lets into his body. Well, we have to be very intentional as born again believers of what we listened to, what we watch, what we hear, our own thoughts. We have to be intentional of our thought life. What type of diet is your thought life on? If you’re just letting your emotions and your thoughts go all over the place, and you’re entertaining fear and you’re meditating on the worst things. You’re meditating on negative things. That’s going to manifest it. And you’re not going to be able to run the full race.
And again, let me just stop here and say, this is nothing to do with how God sees you. God loves you. He’s made up his mind about you. You are awesome, praise God, in Christ. This is talking about how much you can see the promises of God manifest in your life. I hate to use the word successful because people get the wrong idea, but basically how successful you’re going to be as a born again believer. How much are you going to be able to live out the things that God’s already provided for you?
Carlie: Or receive everything that he has for you?
Ashley: How are you going to receive everything God has for you? How are you going to live a full life? When God looks at you, he sees you in Christ and his plans for you are complete. His plans for you are perfect. He has big plans for you, praise God. We looked at Jeremiah 29:11, and in one translation, it says, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and plans to give you a long life and a long future and a bright future.”
Carlie: An expected end.
Ashley: An expected end, I believe the King James says, and the NIV says to prosper you. So God sees you and he wants these great things for you. But we have to choose whether we want to participate in God’s plan or not. In, I believe it’s Deuteronomy 30, He says, “I set before you life or death, choose life.” It’s our choice as believers. So again, this isn’t about how God sees us. This is about how we relate to God and how we can really live out everything God has for us, how we can live out the abundant life.
So there’s the athlete. He’s disciplined. He’s focused on the finish line. He doesn’t get distracted by people around him and distractions around him. Today, we’re going to look at the third example Paul gives, and that is of a farmer. So Paul says a soldier, then he talks about an athlete. And the last one he talks about is a farmer. And this is found in II Timothy chapter two, and in verse six. It says here in II Timothy chapter 2:6 is, “The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops.” And then he goes on to say in verse 7, “Consider why I say, that the Lord may give you understanding in all these things.”
Paul’s heart here in teaching Timothy is that we’ll have some practical applications and some examples of how to live out his life of faith. How to take the kingdom by force, praise. God, the violent take it by force, is where we started. And the farmer is a great example because here’s some of the attributes of a farmer. A farmer is hardworking. He’s diligent. A farmer sows. He has to sow in certain times. A Farmer sows. Then a great thing about a farmer is he trusts in the system. The farmer trusts in the fact that if he sows seeds at a certain time and after he’s prepared the ground, he sows seed at a certain time, he can wait and he knows that seed’s going to grow and produce a crop.
Carlie: He doesn’t have to understand how the seed worked for it to grow.
Ashley: Exactly. He doesn’t have to understand.
Carlie: He just has to say the seed.
Ashley: He just has to sow the seed. That’s an act of faith, right? Sowing seed is an act of faith. Praise God. I think Jesus gives a great example of that in … Have you got that scripture?
Carlie: Yeah, this is in Mark 4:26. He says, and this is talking about the kingdom of God. It says, “The kingdom of God is like a man who scattered seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises day and night and the seed sprouts and grows. But he does not know how. For the earth bears fruit by itself. First the blade, then the head, then the full seat in the head. But when the grain is ripe, immediately, he applies a sickle because the harvest has come.”
Ashley: That’s awesome. I love that.
Carlie: There’s a lot in that passage.
Ashley: It really is. That’s a great example of the farm and how it works as a farmer. The things that I believe Paul was trying to bring out here to show Timothy, as a farmer, I’m going to bring that myself and look at that myself, because I think there’s a few things you want to touch on. First of all, the farmer has to do the groundwork. He has to sow. And we could apply this to a number of areas. Right now we’re talking about how to live out our life of faith. So you could say that you have to sow the word of God in your heart.
The parable before this is the parable of the sower. And it’s a very famous parable. It’s Talking about the four types of ground. Basically the four types of ground represent our hearts. When we saw the word in our hearts, we need to prepare our hearts and make sure our hearts can receive in the word of God. But we have to make a choice to sow the word in our lives. If we’re not sowing the word in our life, then we can’t expect word results. A lot of time people want the results of the word, but they don’t want to take the time to sow the word.
Carlie: Or prepare the ground.
Ashley: Or Prepare the ground. The, and the best ground is the ground with less in it, less distractions, less things.
Carlie: Less weeds.
Ashley: Less weeds, less things in it. So basically simplifying our lives and actually putting the word of God first place in our life. God sent his word and healed them. Jesus was the word made flesh. I’m telling you, we need to have a life that is centered around the word of God. And again, this isn’t works. God loves you, but if you want to see God’s results in your life, then you’re going to have to put the word of God first place in your life. So actually, I work full time. I’m busy. I’m a single parent. I do all these things. You can make the word first place in your life. You don’t have to sit and read it for hours and hours to make the word first place in life. Now it’s good to spend time with it, but you can start focusing your attention even just in one scripture, one promise, and start focusing your attention on that promise.
Whatever the situation is you’re going through. Maybe it’s a healing you’re looking for. Maybe you have something wrong in your body. Rather than concentrating on the symptoms all the time and letting the symptoms take your attention, you choose to put your focus on the word. And you choose to focus and meditate on a scripture. Maybe a scripture like I Peter 2:24. “By his stripes, I’m healed.” Maybe it’s Isaiah 53. Whatever the scripture is that you want to focus on. You start meditating on that scripture and you’re exalting the word above the situation, above the circumstance. That’s how you sow the word in your heart. But it does take time. It’s going to take time. You’re going to have to cut out some things and spend some time in the word of God.
And we don’t make this a religious thing or legalistic thing, but just to give you some examples, we cut out just sitting and watching regular TV. We’re not just going to sit there and flick through the channels and just watch regular TV for hours and hours. Why? Why would we do that? When we can use some of that time to read the word and to watch things that are going to be wholesome.
Carlie: To be intentional.
Ashley: Yeah, to be intentional. Watch other ministries. Watch other teachings, watch live church services. Read the word, basically feed yourself. I think there’s a term they used to use. What’s it called? A garbage in, garbage out. I think it was originally a computing term, but basically whatever you put in something, it’s going to come out. Whatever commands you put in. So you can choose. If you don’t like the results, if you don’t like the fruit of your, lifestyle, sowing different seed. Start sowing different seeds. You’re going to see different fruits. Start sowing the word of God in your life.
Carlie: You don’t like the harvest, plant a different crop.
Ashley: That’s good. If you don’t like your harvest, plant another crop. That’s great. That’ll make a t-shirt. I like that. People will say, “Actually I don’t understand how it works. You’re telling me I just read the word and meditate on the word and focus on the word and then I start seeing word results?” Yes. And the good thing is you don’t have to understand how it works, but you do have to work it. You don’t have to do you understand how it works, but you do have to work. You do have to do the sowing.
So the farmer here in Mark 4:26, it says, “He scatters seed on the ground.” I love this, verse 27. This should give you some encouragement. “He sleeps by night and rises by a day.” He goes around his normal business, if you like. He scatters the seed. And then he goes around his normal business. He sleeps by night.
Carlie: Rests at night.
Ashley: Rises by day. He himself does not know … The seed should sprout and grow. And then ready for this? “He himself does not know how.” You don’t have to know seed time and harvest works to get the benefit of it. We fly on airplanes all the time. We fly around the world, praise God. And we’re privileged enough to travel and to hold events and preach at churches and other conferences and spread the good news. Praise God, spread this message around the world. And we get on airplanes very, very regularly. Too often sometimes. Sometimes we get off one and then on the next one a few days later.
But I don’t know how airplanes work. I mean, there’s thrusts, there’s lifts, there’s jets. There’s all these things I don’t know. But all I know is I can get on an airplane. I can travel 4,000 miles in a matter of hours, where it would take me days on a boat or a car.
Carlie: And they work.
Ashley: And they work.
Carlie: You don’t know how they work, but they still work.
Ashley: I just have to get on the plane. If I said, “I’m not going to get on that plane, I don’t understand how it works.” Then I’d be in trouble. In fact, if I said, “I’m only going to use things that I know how they work,” I’m going to be in a lot of trouble.
Carlie: Yes we would.
Ashley: Because I don’t know how many things work. I just take [inaudible]. You don’t have to understand how it works. You just have to know this. It does work. Sowing the word of God in your life does work. Whatever your challenge is, find a scripture, find a verse, read the word, pray in the Holy Ghost. Let the Lord reveal to you a secret in his word. Let the Lord reveal to you a scripture that becomes [inaudible] to you. That becomes … revelation.
Carlie: There you go. Revelatory.
Ashley: Revelatory to you. And when that jumps out at you start meditating on that. Focus on that, write it out, put it on post-it notes. Do whatever you have to do, but focus your attention on the word of God. That’s how you sow the word in your heart. You focus your attention on the word of God, through meditation, praise God. Then verse 28, “For the earth yields crops by itself. First, the blade, then the head. After that, the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Here’s the neat thing about the farmer example is he’s hardworking, he’s diligent. He sows. Then he rests. He doesn’t have to work out how it works. In fact, the farmer can’t really do anything to make the seed grow. So if you think you have to make this happen, you can’t make this happen. All you can do is be diligent to sow and to stay in faith and to rest. In fact, I love how Paul puts it about we labor to enter into his rest. We have to labor to enter into his rest. That’s the only labor we have to do, really, is to stay in faith and stay in the finished works of Christ.
Carlie: Amen. The farmer has to trust the seed to do what its job is.
Ashley: What it’s designed to do.
Carlie: When we sow the word of God, the faith that we’re exercising is a trusting part of us that’s trusting the word to do its job. The word works.
Ashley: Amen. It really does. It’s awesome. So that’s what the farmer does. He sows, and then he rests and he trusts in the system. He has faith in the system. You need to have faith in the fact that God’s word always works. Praise God. God’s word does not return to him void. So if we take God’s word and put it to work, it’s going to work. Now sometimes it’s time. Sometimes it’s seed, time, harvest. But it’s always going to word if we don’t give up. In fact, the only person that can stop your crop growing, or to make your crop unsuccessful or choke your crop, if you like, is you. The only person that can stop you getting the results that that God has for you is you, is us. We’re the ones that can stop.
God’s promises come to pass because we can speak against them, or we can get an unbelief and say, “That’s not going to work.” We can dig up our seeds, everything.
Carlie: We dig it up with our words.
Ashley: Yeah, we get a scripture and we say, “Well, that’s not worked. It’s been 10 minutes, or 10 weeks and it’s not worked. The word of God’s not working.” And that’s digging up our seed. Don’t do that. Trust in the word of God. Sow that word in your heart, praise God, and you watch God’s results. I’m telling you, surround yourself with good teachings, make the word of God a priority, and you watch the results. You’re going to have harvest just like the farmer has harvest. So be like a farmer. Praise God. Sow diligently, and just watch as your life changes. Praise God, as you see the fruit. Amen?
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: You got a testimony there for me?
Carlie: I do. And I love this testimony because it reminds me of the process that we’re talking about with the farmer actually. This woman wrote to us to say that she was looking online for crochet patterns.
Ashley: Looking online for crochet patterns.
Carlie: Yes. And then she saw an advertisement for healing conference where I was teaching. I don’t know where I go together with crocheting. But anyway.
Ashley: Just targeted crocheters.
Carlie: Obviously, Carlie and crochet. I don’t know. She tuned into the online stream while laying in her bed and heard me teach and claimed her healing whilst rejoicing with others. So she heard the teaching and she claimed it. She took that seed by faith.
Ashley: Come on.
Carlie: She said after the conference was over, she fell asleep. And when she woke up, she was on her left side. The reason that this is miraculous is that she hasn’t been able to sleep on that side in more than five years. She was completely healed.
Ashley: Praise God.
Carlie: So she took the word of God, she claimed it by faith. And then she rested.
Ashley: She sowed the word, claimed it.
Carlie: She let the word do its work.
Ashley: Took it by force. Ties in beautifully, praise God. That’s awesome. If you’ve got a testimony we’d love to hear from you. Go to our website, TerradezMinistries.com. Leave us your testimonies. We love to read out viewers’ testimonies and even questioned as well. You can ask your questions there. If you have any questions for us, we love to read out questions and testimonies during these programs, praise God. We love to hear from you. And we love to hear what God is doing in your life, praise God. God is so good. So we appreciate you joining us today. I want to pray for you before we end. We’ve been looking at some great things today about how you can take the promises of God, praise God. I believe right now you can take the promises of God.
He has set them up for you. So let me pray for you. Father God, I thank you for every person watching and listening today. I thank you, Lord, that your promises are yes and amen for them. I think you Lord. We are taking your promises by force. We are going after them and we’re pursuing them because you’ve already provided them for us, Lord. I thank you that everything we need is already in Christ. And I thank you, Lord, you’ve made us fully equipped, fully empowered to do everything you’ve called us to do. Thank you, Lord. You’re A good God.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: We Love you, lord. Praise Good. Isn’t God good? God’s awesome. Hey, thanks for joining us today. We’re going to be back real soon with another program. But remember, don’t just settle for living a normal life when you could be living the abundant life. We’ll see you next time.