But even if they didn't, I'm trusting that by the time I'm finished delivering the word tonight, you will break free and enter into that wonderful joy that the Lord has for us. I have just one scripture to read tonight from Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 10. It says, Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the best food, drink the sweet drinks, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared.

For this day is holy to our Lord. Neither be sorrowful, for the joy of the Lord is your stronghold of protection. All around the world, we're facing situations that we haven't faced before.

Circumstances are pressing us. Financial difficulties face many folks. And the most devastating experience of all is that C word change.

We're being forced into circumstances that we are not comfortable with. And we cannot help being affected in some way. And the part of us that gets affected the most, ultimately, is our feelings.

Now, everyone has feelings. I know some temperaments don't ever seem to show their feelings. And you may wonder whether they're hard as nails.

But hidden below that tough exterior, there are feelings, every single one of us. And our feelings actually have the strongest effect on our lives. Positive feelings can motivate you and keep you going.

And you can reach out and accomplish great things. But unfortunately, they don't last forever, do they? And sometimes when you need them the most, they just vanish into thin air. Negative feelings.

Negative feelings have the power to take away your reason for living. You accomplish nothing because you just don't feel like doing anything. You feel depressed and perhaps even despairing of life.

You lost all your goals and the incentives that you had in life. Now, before you can break out of these feelings that have been called blue feelings, are you feeling blue? You need to identify where these feelings come from. And then we need to know how we can get rid of them.

Sometimes we need to know where they're coming from first before we can get rid of them. So I want to try and give you some information tonight that may help you to identify where your feelings come from. And perhaps as I'm sharing, you may say, yes, actually, that's where it started.

When that happened, that's when I started to feel bad. Okay, but I'm not going to leave you as many psychiatrists and psychologists do, showing you who done it and what happened and leave you there to continue suffering. We're going to bring you out of it, going to set you free, going to show you how to get rid of these feelings and enter once more into that joy of the Lord, which is your stronghold of protection.

Now, where do our feelings originate? Well, there's only three parts to our being, isn't it? We're a spirit, a soul, and a body. And most of our feelings originate from one or more of those different parts of our being. What kind of feelings do we get from the body? The body has the ability to change our feelings by the power of food, by the power of obtaining things, possessions.

These things create feelings in us. A good meal has an effect on our feelings. Buying something new or obtaining something that you really desire can change your feelings.

There is the power of sexual release, one of the wonderful experiences of life that God's created for us. And for those who are married, a wonderful opportunity to experience that. Then the body offers the power of defense, the defense mechanism of the body enables us to have a sense of challenge and competition and activity in our lives that bring us satisfaction.

See, all of these things bring a certain emotive experience to our lives. And then we get to the soul, and the soul is always probably the center of the most feelings because the soul is what contains your emotional response. Our emotions lie in the soul, and our emotions are the center of all of our feelings.

But also in the soul is the mind, and the thoughts of our mind also affect the way we feel. The soul contains the power of choice or the exercise of our will. And through exercising our will, we can sometimes change the way we feel.

Now we get into the deeper part of our being, the human spirit. And the human spirit has certain functions in it which also create feelings. The human spirit has a power of expectation, of anticipation, and looking to the future.

And that can create an exciting goal, exciting feeling of reaching out into the future. The spirit has the power of communion or fellowship with other human beings. And that creates a wonderful feeling when we interact with other human beings.

The spirit has the power of intuition or revelation where we come up with a brand new idea. And that creates feelings. Now I want to look at each of these in a bit more detail so that you can understand exactly how they work.

And then perhaps where some of the dangers are of depending on these things. Let's look firstly at the effects of food. Food brings temporary pleasure.

Ah, there's nothing to beat a good meal. Ah, that tasted so good. And we have a term that we've actually attached to certain foods.

We call them comfort foods. Because when you eat those foods, they have a comforting effect on you, on your feelings. But food has a lot more power than that because food is strongly connected to a thing which I've called templates.

Templates are experiences of life that get locked into us. And where we've had good experiences, we can sometimes re-experience those experiences when a trigger is created. Now if you had a very good experience while having a certain meal, you'll find that later on just sitting down and eating that same meal may bring that memory of that experience out of you spontaneously and create a good feeling.

And sometimes it's got nothing to do with the food. It may even have been the environment in which you were eating, the people that were there. There's a recreation of the circumstances that you were in which brings back those wonderful feelings.

Fortunately, the feelings are not always wonderful. Sometimes there are negative feelings that go with templates. And so if you had a bad experience, a recreation of that set of circumstances may trigger in you those negative feelings back there.

And suddenly out of the blue, you feel these negative feelings. You're saying, well, where did that come from? Well, it could be related to food. Food templates are very strong.

When we were forced to go overseas and leave our home country and live in a foreign land, we discovered they didn't eat the same food there that I grew up with. We have our favorite meals, don't we? Oh, I love that food. Can't get it anymore.

Some people capitalized and they imported foods from our country that we could buy at a very exorbitant price. But you know what? We paid the price because we had a template for those foods. Just eating those foods brought back good old memories of the days gone by.

And so we bought them and we ate them. Food is very powerful in changing your feelings. How about dining out? Oh, there's that lovely atmosphere for the candles.

You know, when you look at people in candlelight, they all look beautiful because you can't see them properly. They have that lovely glow on their faces. It's amazing how even ugly people can sometimes look beautiful in candlelight.

It's an ethereal experience, isn't it? And then somebody comes and serves you. You can feel like you're a wealthy person who has your own servants. There's this cozy atmosphere there in the corner of the restaurant.

Oh, isn't it a lovely experience to go out for a meal and just be spoiled a little bit? It creates wonderful feelings. And I'll tell you what, you may not have much money left and there may be things that you really need to buy with that money, but the pure thought of going and having a wonderful dining out experience, the chances are you'll take your last bit of money and spend it on that experience. Why? Because it creates good feelings.

And good feelings are so important to our happiness in life. Of course, there are negative aftereffects. You're regretting and you ate too much and you've got a stomachache and you're bloated and you say, I pigged out, I shouldn't have.

You go and look in the mirror. Yeah, sure enough, that tummy's sticking out a lot more than it did before. If you dare to get on the scale, the scale just shoots up in an unbelievable manner.

You begin to panic. All that weight I've put on. It's all those wonderful positive feelings suddenly end up in negative feeling.

See, food is very powerful in changing our feelings. It's not only food that we use though. Sometimes we use drugs.

Well, I'm a believer. I don't take drugs. Yeah, sure.

There are substances that affect our emotions. And yes, as a believer, we should not be taking these things or relying on them. But hey, when we're out having that wonderful dining experience, what goes better with it than a lovely glass of wine? I'm not an alcoholic.

I don't want to get drunk. It's just a lovely, soothing experience of having a glass of wine. It just takes the edge of the stresses of life and allows you to chill out.

And if you drink enough of it, it takes you into this make-believe world. And now you don't care what anybody around you thinks. And so you tend to let down all the that you've put around yourself to protect yourself.

You just be real. You be who you are. And you act in ways that you probably wouldn't normally act.

That's a wonderful feeling. Well, afterwards, you realize what an idiot you made of yourself. Well, I shouldn't have said that.

I let out a secret. I lost control. Some people resort to tobacco.

Tobacco dulls the senses, takes away some of the pain, takes away some of the depression and the discouragement and just the pain of life. It eases the worry and the fear. And inside, it encourages sociability.

Everybody else around me is lit up, and they're all smoking. See, that's how most people get into it. They get into it in order to get into the right social circles.

And if you don't smoke with them, you're the odd one out. So we get into it, and we get into the bondage of a drug, which is legal. So now I'm doing something illegal.

It's a temptation to resort to these things. Why? Because we're feeling negative. We want to change our feelings.

And then perhaps you can't sleep at night because you're feeling stressed, and so you need to take some medication, a sleeping pill. It's easily available. Helps you to chill out.

Maybe a pain pill that will take away just some of the pain. Any pill that'll maybe put you on a little bit of a high. And of course, those who get into drug addictions, they start taking illicit drugs.

Why? To try and create good feelings, because you can't face the feelings of life. All of these things lie in the realm of the body. Then there's shopping.

Shopping is a social experience. You go out, and you rub shoulders with a whole lot of other people out there. Everybody out there in the shops looking for the things that they want.

You have a chance to interact with people, to smile, sometimes to talk, it's a good experience. Just to get out there, instead of being stuck at home, just to have an experience of freedom and interaction with fellow human beings. And then there's the joy of buying something new.

Oh, that is so pretty. That is so beautiful. Do you know what? I do have 10 pairs of shoes, but that one looks so good.

Do you know what? A woman can never have too many shoes. Come on, let's face it. See? And there's that beautiful top, that blouse.

You know, I would look stunning in that. Come on, look. You see how cheap it's going? My goodness.

I need to grab it while I can. Just look at those pants, that skirt. Wow.

Oh, just look at that. It makes me look slimmer. It's an exciting experience.

You come home feeling great. You come home feeling penniless, but you feel great about it because you satisfied a desire and created good feelings. Of course, the guys, the guys, it's not normally clothes.

You know, a guy, it's a device. I want a new iPhone, new iPad, just some knickknack, something gadgety. Maybe a tool that I can use.

Go through the hardware store and find a new tool. That's a new set of screwdrivers. Those are so much better than the ones that I've got.

Come on, let's add it to our collection. Just imagine how it's going to be having a whole workshop full of some of these awesome tools. See, we each have our own desires.

You know what? It's a wonderful experience. You see, those are all the desires of the body. Are these wrong? No, they're not sin.

The Bible didn't say, thou shalt not go out for dinner. Thou shalt not shop for nice things. The Lord wants us to have all of these things, but you see where the problem is, is we become dependent on them.

And there's those of us who need a physical outlet. We need to let out our emotional energy by doing something physical and active. Not only get out there and go to the gym and work out for an hour or two.

I want to go and play a game of tennis or squash or some sport or something, something that's competitive. And those who are nerds, they get on their computers and they play computer games. Because the same feeling of challenge, of competing with somebody else, even if sometimes it's against the computer, is a sense of accomplishment when I win.

These all lie in the realm of the body, strangely enough. And again, is there anything wrong with them? No, but I'll show you shortly where the dangers are. Now we come to the soul.

Soul is where the mind, emotions and the world lie. See, and the soul is the place where we accumulate everything that we see and hear and taste and touch and smell. All the senses, they program and send data into our soul.

And where is the greatest source of input, of data? We get it from the world round about us as we go about our daily duties. And then when you're at home, you're sitting in front of the television and you're absorbing all the data that the world has to give you. Now let me tell you what makes up 90% of that data.

Bad news. Bad news. Do you know that for any story that's portrayed in a movie, that if the whole story goes well and they lived happily ever after and there was never any difficulty, nobody wants to watch that movie.

It's boring. For a movie to be success, it has to have conflict in it. You study writing, screenwriting, even book writing, they teach you that for a story to have impact, you've got to introduce conflict.

You have the protagonist who's the nice guy and there always has to be an antagonist. We hate the antagonist. We want to kill him.

But if he wasn't in the story, it would not be worth watching the story. You see, these things are designed to stir up the desires, what the Bible calls the flesh, which is strongly the desires of the body. The three roots of the flesh that come up as a result.

Anger and bitterness, sexual lust, desire for things, covetousness, discontentment with what you have. These are the things that are produced in us as we continue to program the ways of the world into us. Most of the time they come out negative.

Yes, occasionally you'll get a movie that's inspiring. It leaves you feeling good and motivated to go and do something challenging. Very seldom is the motivation something that's based on the word of God or on God's ways of doing things.

It's based on psychology or some person's ideas. Most of the time, just turn on the news and what are you getting? Bad news. Because good news doesn't sell.

People want to hear the latest rapes and killings and murders and all the bad stuff that's happening in the world and everybody that's died. You pick up the local newspaper and front page story is somebody that just got murdered in your area. So positive and uplifting.

That's the way of the world, folks. There are some better things that we can fill our soul with and one of them is humor. Something that produces positive emotions.

Now I'm speaking about real humor. Things that are really funny that can make you laugh a little bit and produce some joy in you. Unfortunately, when we come to the humor of this world, it usually is laughing at somebody else's expense.

The big comedians stand up and tear other people to shreds and everybody laughs. It's dog eat dog out there and people laugh at other people's misfortune. See, that's not God's way.

So even though you're going to turn to the humor of this world, you may find yourself becoming contaminated. When you experience that in the presence of a group of other people, you pick up a group spirit and if everybody out around you is laughing, you're going to be the odd one out by keeping a serious face. So you laugh with, even though you know that what's said and done was not funny at all.

But humor, God's way, can be beautiful, can be uplifting and motivating. And then getting involved in some kind of activity. You know, if you push yourself to do something, you have a sense of accomplishment or achievement.

Many people will drive themselves, you run long distances, you pick up heavy weights, you get into athletic events for the recognition that it gives and for the wonderful sense of accomplishment. Just look at me, look how great I am. See, it creates a positive feeling.

One of the things that physical activity does is keep you so busy that your mind doesn't have time to think of the negative. And for some people, because they are so prone to being affected by the negatives around about them, they drive themselves hard, keep themselves preoccupied in their work, just so they can keep their mind off the real problems. It's easy to see that in the world, but I'm afraid to say many believers are caught in the same thing.

And some people, even doing the work of the ministry, are driving themselves under the guise that they're doing it for the Lord. And they are, but sometimes hidden there is the need for me to accomplish, to achieve, so I feel good about myself, so I don't have time to think of all the negatives of how I look, and I look at myself in the mirror, of how I feel when I'm all alone at night. We drive, drive, drive, push ourselves hard to create or avoid feelings.

Social interaction is one of the most wonderful ways of bringing good feelings. You pick up the atmosphere of the group. What we call the vibe.

There's good vibes here. You have a sense of belonging. I'm not all alone.

I'm part of the herd. It gives me a sense of security and protection. See, these are all effects that are actually taking place in the soul.

Let's get into the human spirit, shall we? The intuition of the human spirit allows us to get revelation. As we meditate on the Lord and on His word, we get new ideas come up of things we haven't thought of before. Sometimes those ideas are creative.

You think of a goal or a plan or something exciting that you can do, something new you can try, a new business you can start, a new way of ministering, whatever it is. It's something you originate, and that gives a wonderful feeling of accomplishment also that I've created something new. People are so zealous about this.

They put a copyright in what they create and dare not let anybody else benefit from my revelation. The communion of the spirit allows us to share our hearts with other people. The thing that the Bible calls fellowship, we experience a oneness with somebody else, and it makes us feel more whole, makes us feel more real.

It's a very positive experience. The wisdom of the spirit gives us an ability to anticipate and look into the future and plan for the future. It allows us to plan and formulate what we're going to do with our lives, and without that, actually, we'll never accomplish much.

Scripture says without a vision, the people will perish. We need a continual, ongoing vision, something to look at in the future. What am I going to do with my life? Where am I going? These are all areas that create feelings, different kinds of feelings.

Now, everything's great if we are able to use these things to create the feelings we need, and then along comes coronavirus, social distancing, lockdown, no getting together in groups, all shops are closed except essentials, no going out to restaurants for a dining experience, and suddenly more than two-thirds or more of the things that you have depended on to make you feel good are taken away from you. I want you to think about it. If right now you could do something which would make you feel better, what would it be? What would it be? If right now you could choose any of these experiences, chances are you have a favorite, and you would like to do that right now, and when you're stuck at home and you can't go out, you try and make do with what you have.

So you can't go out for that good dining experience. You start thinking, what can we cook that's fancy? I don't want the boring same old. I don't want the healthy vegetables and high water stuff and salads.

I don't want that. That's boring. I want something exciting.

You've got to start now trying to create or recreate some of those things that you rely on out there to give you joy. If you're married, your sexual desires may be highly aroused with just the feeling that if I can have a sexual orgasm, I will feel better. And you do until it's over.

And then that feeling returns. That morbidity comes back again. Well, you are prevented from so many of these things that bring you good feelings.

What do you do now? What do you do now? In this country, they have forbidden the sale of alcohol and cigarettes. So those who have relied on their nice little drink to make them feel better can't have it. Those who need their smoke to make them feel better, they can't do it.

It's been taken away. All the frustrations that have arisen in so many people. And you know what? When it comes to unbelievers in the world, we can understand that.

They have nothing better. But isn't it so sad when we as believers find ourselves caught in the same things? God's order has always been spirit and soul and then body. Our order naturally as human beings is the other way around.

Body and soul. And if we've got any time left, we'll dig into the spirit, right? You know what? It's not only the worldly aspects. We can't even get together and fellowship with other believers.

We can't go to a church meeting where there's some kind of good worship and praise and a sense that group sense of being that wonderful feeling of being together. It's taken away from us. All we have left is the one who cannot be taken away from us, who will never forsake us, the Lord himself in the form of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us.

The Holy Spirit wants to work through your spirit and he wants to give to you the true joy. Where does that come from? It comes from what the Bible calls the fruit of the spirit. Fruit of the spirit has got a whole list, but the first three are love and joy and peace.

You look at all the strife around about you, sometimes it's difficult to love. There's a lot of ugly people out there. When your feelings are down because everything's against you, it's very difficult to have joy.

When the world is full of strife, it's difficult to have peace in your own heart. It's impossible to get it from the body or from the soul, which is being programmed by the world. We're not going to get the fruit of the spirit that way.

We can only get it from the Holy Spirit who lives within us. You know what? That fruit produces the best feelings in this world. The fruit of love helps you to get rid of all anger and frustration.

The fruit of joy helps you to get rid of worry and depression and fear and all those negatives. The peace of God helps you to sleep at night without any turmoil and worry. Those are all the inner working of the Holy Spirit inside of us.

If you're a child of God, he's living there inside of you, but he's never going to force himself on you. You must invite him to flood your spirit with himself until these wonderful fruits of the spirit begin to bubble up from inside of you. You know what? The whole world can be falling apart and you can be all alone, even in an enclosed space.

You can know that Jesus is there with you and you can have a peace and a joy and you can be totally content. There's nothing else. There's none of the things that the body needs.

There's none of the things that the world has to offer. Now that's just the presence of God in you, but God's got so much more for us. He offers us his anointing.

What is the anointing? The anointing is when God's power begins to flood our entire being, spirit, soul, and body. You see the fruit of the spirit come up from deep inside of our spirit and they affect the way that we feel in our souls. But the anointing of God begins to saturate even further and fills our whole being so that we actually even feel it tangibly and physically in our body.

And the anointing of God on your body can be so strong that it feels like you're high, higher than alcohol, higher than any drug can offer you. It'll give you a feeling of euphoria unlike anything that this world can offer with the extra proviso that when it goes away you don't end up with the after effects of having a hangover or drug withdrawals, things like that. The spirit of God can replace all of these things, but we never take the time to get to that place we allow him to.

A lot of people seem to think that the anointing of God is a hit and miss thing that just comes when God feels like it. I used to think that myself at one time. I tried looking up the word anointing in the scriptures and I discovered that there were actually only two main scriptures in the New Testament that spoke of the anointing and both of them said that you got it already.

Let me read you the most common one. On John 2 verse 27 it says, but the anointing that you receive from him remains in you and you do not need anyone to teach you. It has the same anointing teaches you about all things and it's true and it's not a lie just as it is torture you will abide in him.

That inner anointing within us is available and is on tap 24 hours a day. But it's not going to work unless you invite him to pour it into you and out of you and through you and to saturate you until you feel like you've been doused with something from above or we're always looking from above because the scripture speaks about the spirit coming upon and that's the way it feels like he's just fallen out of the sky and come on us but actually he's been in you the whole time. You see we keep looking out there for God's blessing but he's actually really put it in you.

You're looking in the wrong place. You're looking to the flesh the good feelings. You know what if you were to start looking to the Lord you would get the best feelings that are available in this world.

How do I know that? David learned this. He found it out because he knew how to get into the presence of God especially through praise and worship and he says in psalm 16 verse 11 you will make known to me the way of a revived life. You're going to show my lord how to live a magnificent life.

He said in your presence there is joy that fully satisfies. I don't need anything else. At your right hand there are pleasures that last forever.

They don't just come and go. They're not temporary. They're not transient.

They last forever. All of these are to be found in the Lord. Not in the world.

Not in your body. Not in your soul. But they are accomplished by allowing the Holy Spirit to pour it into your spirit and from there into your soul and then into your body.

All you need to do is to reach out to him and you know what you don't need to be out there in the world to do that. It doesn't matter where you are. In your lockdown, sitting in your home, bored to tears, he's there.

If you shut off all the voices that are around about you. If you shut off all the noise that the world is trying to bombard you with and listen for that still small voice because he doesn't shout. He's gentle.

Listen to that still small voice. You'll hear the only thing that you need to lift you up and to motivate you and encourage you and set you on a path of magnificence and living a life of victory. Unfortunately there is another spiritual realm that is also doing its best to interfere with this.

It's called the realm of darkness. God's realm is called the realm of light. And you know what the realm of darkness wants to do? It wants to stop that light that's within you from shining out.

That's what it wants to do. Satan cannot take the light from you. He cannot take the light from you.

The Lord said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Satan will lie to you and he'll tell you God has forsaken you. You miserable rotten sinner you.

God doesn't love you anymore. How could he love somebody as bad as you? No, it's a lie from the pit of hell. He said, I'll never leave you.

He's there. His anointing remains in you. The scripture says, remains forever and ever while you walk in this world.

So what Satan wants to do is he wants to lock that anointing inside of you that you can't reach it. He wants to lock it up so that it feels like it's not there anymore. So it feels like God is a million miles away and he's forsaken you.

And then you try to reach out into your usual ways of getting joy. And either they don't satisfy or they've been taken away from you, but you can't get to them. Now you're in a desperate situation.

I can't do anything out there that I normally do to make me feel better. We don't have any decent food left in the house because finances are tight. You name it.

Look at your circumstances. Look at everything that's now been turned against you. Everything that you've ever depended on to make you feel good.

There's only one access you have and that's that access inwards to the spirit of God. And when you finally come to that place where you tried to do it, he's not there either. At least that's what it feels like.

It's a desperate situation to be in. Now I can't tell you how to change the outer circumstances. There are people who are trying to become militants about changing what their government has done.

They're trying to rebel against the laws, the lockdowns and everything else that's been instituted. I can tell you what you can do. I will help you to break free and get the greatest joy and the greatest wonderful feelings that there are.

It's to reach inwards. And now you're in a dilemma because as you try to reach inwards, there's a wall. You can't reach it.

You can't reach the presence of God. You can't reach the Holy Spirit that's in you. He's hidden away from you.

His voice has become muffled that you cannot hear it anymore because Satan has locked you in. Well, how did he manage to do that? Because the door was opened to let him in. And the hand for that door is inside.

So he can't barge his way in. He can knock very loudly and fool you into opening the door. But you must open the door before he gets in.

How do you do that? Firstly, through that three-letter word sin. Sin always opens the door to Satan and gives him license in your life. Through accepting the contaminations of this world and diverting us away from even thinking of the presence of the Lord.

Well, we are so busy engaging in the things that the world has to offer that we forgot to give the Lord a place. Now suddenly, oh Lord, help me. Now there's a more dangerous one.

The first two are very easy to deal with. If you know you've sinned, the scripture says the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. All we need to do is to cry and say, Lord, forgive me.

I receive your cleansing now. And it's gone instantly. Take your eyes off the world.

Dive into God's word. Get in prayer and get in the spirit. Start listening to his voice and you can get rid of all those worldly contaminations.

The most dangerous one of all is a door that we open through associations with other people who are carrying a curse. When you open your heart to somebody else who has given Satan license in their life, you open the door to receiving a curse from that person, particularly if that person has been involved in sins like the occult, which definitely are worse than COVID-19, the contamination that you can get from such a person. And I've shared on that before, so I'm not going to labor on it tonight.

These are one of the biggest doors that you can open up. And sometimes we do it unwittingly, sometimes just to be part of the crowd. We don't want to upset people.

We open our hearts to them and we receive from them. Well, the first thing you must do is to close the doors. Otherwise, Satan's going to keep coming in.

If he's got an open door, he's coming in. You know the easiest way to lose everything in your home? Let's just leave the doors open all the time. This country, you can leave it out in the street and still get stolen.

You leave it in your yard. You can put it anywhere you like. But if the doors are open, it's gone.

It's gone. Satan's no gentleman. Scripture likens him to a thief that comes to steal.

This is exactly what he's done. He's stolen your joy, stolen your peace, your love. You need to get it back.

So the first thing you need to do is to close those doors that you've opened. How do we do that? James 4 verse 7, the simplest solution says, Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

You start by confessing your sin and making right with God. Submit yourself afresh to God. And then you cut off all those other open doors of contamination, especially from people.

People that you become associated with, who have brought a curse into your life. You need to break spiritual links with them. You need to say, I'll break that spiritual link with that person.

I disassociate myself with all the curses in their life. I have nothing to do with it. And sometimes just doing that, you'll suddenly feel a breakthrough in your spirit.

And suddenly you'll feel that wall that's been put around the anointing of God in you. You'll feel that wall begin to crumble. Usually you have to go beyond submitting to God.

You've got to resist the devil also. But be careful of people. You think I'm being paranoid? You're saying, well, where does it say this in the scripture? Let me give you one.

1 Timothy 5, 22 says, lay hands hastily on nobody. Now they enter into a spiritual union with the sins of others. Keep yourself in a state of purity.

More dangerous than you thought. Let us drive the enemy out. The Bible says in the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow.

The Bible says, these signs shall follow those who believe and have faith. In my name, they will cast out demons. You have the right as a child of God, once you've submitted to him, to now resist the devil and say, Satan, every license I've given you, I'm taking it back.

Now get out of my life and go. God's given you the ability to see in the spirit through the gift of ascending spirits. You may see some little demons scattering from you.

Sometimes they're like little monkeys or chimpanzees or gorillas, depending on how high a level they are. You'll see them fleeing from you and you'll know that these are the things that were locking you in, preventing you from experiencing that wonder of the anointing of the Lord within. Now, if you struggle to do that on your own, get somebody to pray with you who has faith.

The Bible speaks about the power of agreement. When two people shall agree together, it shall be done. Call somebody close at hand that you trust to pray with you and stand against that thing until it goes.

Don't accept anything else. Don't just pray and say, oh, I still feel the way, I'll give up. No, you keep standing on it until it's gone and something amazing is going to happen.

Suddenly, those negative feelings kind of fall off you like an old garment. They shatter around you like a shell that suddenly is disintegrating. You see the light again, the realm of the Spirit.

God wants you to be happy. He wants you to have fun. And the best place to find that positive thing is not outside of you, it's inside of you.

The outside can give temporary relief. And thank the Lord that he's given us some of these wonderful things for us to enjoy in life. And the Lord wants us to enjoy them, but don't ever depend on them for your joy.

It might make you happy for a season, but they won't produce joy because joy is a fruit of the Spirit and can only come from God, and that can only come from his Holy Spirit within you. Now, you deal with every attempt that Satan's made to lock that out and to lock you in. One of the things that I recommend that every believer should do is what I call a daily stand-to.

I don't even know if they still use this term anymore, but years ago, when I did my military training and I was in an army camp, they had a daily procedure known as the stand-to. It would happen at the crack of dawn as the sun is coming up, and it would happen in the evening as the sun was going down. They said they had found that these were the two times of day when the enemy was most likely to attack your camp.

And so we would all take our positions in a circle all around our camp, looking outwards with our rifles fully loaded, on guard, and ready that should the enemy appear, we're ready to hit him. And we'd be that way until eventually the sun has gone down and the commander comes, stand down now. Or in the morning, as the sun has fully come up, we know the enemy's not going to attack there because he's going to be too visible.

And all you need to do on a daily basis is come into the presence of the Lord, get your spiritual rifle cocked, get ready to hit the enemy if he should appear. You say, Lord, I give myself to you, and I'm ready. Satan, don't you dare try anything with me today.

I'm warning you from the outset, I'm going to this day with the Lord now, and at night before you go to bed, don't just collapse there. Take the time to get into his presence once again to say, Lord, the night is yours. You watch over me as I sleep.

Satan, don't you dare, don't you give me bad dreams, don't you attack me. Simple little process, takes five minutes. You'll be amazed what a difference it will make to your day and to your night.

Then above all, keep a spirit of praise throughout the day. No matter what happens, keep a spirit of praise because praise lifts you up into the heavenly realm. Praise produces wonderful feelings of joy.

Sing, even if you don't have a good voice. Let out your joy in singing. You know, when I see somebody walking around singing, the thought never enters into my mind, boy, she's depressed.

We hear somebody walking around singing, boy, they must be having a bad time. No, no, no, no. In fact, you're tempted to go to them and say, so what are you so happy about? What are you so happy about while the rest of us are feeling bad? Well, I think it's time you become one of those, not the other one, don't you? I think it's time you spread a little bit of the joy around.

Walk around with a song in your heart. Walk around with praise on your lips. And you know what? Satan will never get that first step of trying to take it away from you, of locking you in.

Now, you may be locked down. You may be limited. You may be restricted.

It's not going to last forever. It may feel like it sometimes. And thank the Lord we'll be able to go out and enjoy all these wonderful things that he's created for us.

But you know, until that arrives, take what you have, the greatest force in the universe dwelling within you. Tap into that power and begin to experience the joy that fully satisfies. Begin to enjoy the pleasures that last forever.

Because they're all to be found in his presence. If you'll take the time. I'm going to pray for those of you who are still struggling with this.

I hope by now you've seen it and you've already done what I've told you. But if you haven't, we're going to do it right now. We're going to start with the first part of James.

Submit yourself to the Lord. I want you to just pray and say, Lord, forgive me for every area I've sinned and failed. Cleanse me from that sin now, in Jesus' name.

I invite you, Lord, again, to be Lord of my life. And then I want you to say, Satan, any door that I've opened to you, I'm closing it now in the name of Jesus. If I opened a door to you through my own sin, that's gone now because Jesus has cleansed me from my sin.

If I opened a door by opening myself to the world, I shut that off now and I shut myself in with him alone. If I've opened a door to receiving a contamination from a friend or a relative, in the name of Jesus, I break that spiritual link and I close that door now in the name of Jesus. And I command you to leave.

You will not trouble me anymore. In the name of Jesus, I come against every evil spirit that is attacking you. Every level of demon that's attacking you.

Every lie that Satan has been whispering into your minds, because he's a liar, don't believe it. I reject those thoughts and I want you to reject those thoughts because they didn't come from the Lord. Those lies that say God has forsaken you, that the Lord is not going to bless you.

It's a lie. Tell him to take his lies back to hell where they came from. Now, in the name of Jesus, in Jesus' name, right now, I come against every demon power that's oppressing God's people.

And I command you to flee. I thank you, Lord, for angelic help now to come and to strengthen and to comfort and to surround and to protect your child from any further attack. Now, Holy Spirit, I invite you to rise up inside of each one.

I ask you to rise up in a very powerful way. I ask you to pour positive thoughts into their mind now that will fill their hearts also with positive emotion and wonderful feelings. And then Lord, I'm asking you to take it even further.

I'm asking you for the external anointing of your spirit that begins to manifest itself in the body that they will feel you physically, feel you physically present, whether it be by a cold shiver or some sense, some physical sensation that lets them know you're there. Oh, Jesus, you're right there. You've got your arms around them.

You're holding them close. Speak your peace. Speak your joy.

Speak your love. Hallelujah. Now, speak your anointing upon your people now.

May they rise up in power. May they rise up in the joy which is their strength and their strongholds. May they go out and do mighty exploits for you until we conquer this enemy that's been arrayed against us, until we conquer this attempt to steal from us the good things that God provided for us, until we rise up as a mighty army in his name to take this world for him.

I thank you for it, Lord, now. In Jesus' name.

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