GYC Southwest 2016: One Soul Audience

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GYC Southwest

Morning Devotional

Virna Santos

Living God’s Love

Dear Father in heaven, Lord, we want to thank you for gathering us in this place.

We want to sit with you, dear Lord, at this time.

Lord, I just pray that you make our hearts pliable in your hands as we hear your word.

Open our minds, dear Father, to what we need to know.

Open our eyes, dear Lord, to what we need to see.

I just ask that you hide me behind a cross.

May you hold me up here in front of your people, dear Lord.

And I just pray that Jesus is lifted up in our hearts at this very moment.

I pray this Lord in your Son's most precious name.

By the message spoken through our dear brother and pastor Anil.

And I'm going to be very transparent with you this morning.

As I sat there and he began preaching the word through Mark 5.

I actually began to squirm in my seat and my flesh took over and I kind of panicked a little bit because Mark 5 was the very thing I was gonna touch bases with you.

But as I sat there and I continued to listen, the Lord held me still.

I looked over to my sister and she's just looking wide-eyed at me and I sat there and I said, Lord, do you need me to do something different?

So I continued to sit there and I listened to Pastor Anil and I was so blessed.

And after Pastor Anil was done, the Lord spoke to me and he said, no, you're going to do what you've prepared to do.

So we're gonna have even a further study in the book of Mark.

So if you could turn to your Bibles with me please.

And I have to say, I have to be a witness of the work of the Holy Spirit.

After that all transpired last night, I had a sense of peace.

I had a recent experience and I want to share with you.

Words were exchanged and I was somewhat hurt.

I didn't know how to react, but yet inside me, I felt this impulse to get on my computer and shoot this email to this person.

And you just feel like it's coming from the Lord, right?

So I sat there and as my fingers had touched the keyboard, I stopped.

I can't give in to this impulsion to advocate for myself, to defend myself, to fight for what I believe in and No, I'm just gonna not react.

And I tell you brothers and sisters, the peace that I felt in not giving in to my impulse is a feeling I cannot describe.

It's nothing sensational, it's nothing emotional, it's nothing out of this world kind of feeling.

I don't know if it was a feeling, but maybe a state of mind, state of heart, that peace that passeth all understanding.

Later on, I was able to reflect on the fact that I did not react and I did not type that angry email or that upset email.

I realized how much damage could have been done if I did gone through with that.

So just like as Pastor Anil was saying, sometimes when God says no, he has a greater blessing in store for you, amen?

And I believe he has a greater blessing for all of us this morning.

We're gonna start at Mark 1, Mark 5 verse 1.

And they came over unto the other side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes.

And when he was come out of the ship, Jesus, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs and no man could bind him.

Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces, neither could any man tame him." Pause.

There's definitely an illustration here of this strength that this man had, right?

Now here's my question for you this morning.

You see, brothers and sisters, oftentimes we resort to methods that don't work.

In other words, we resort to certain methods sometimes out of impulse, out of The desire to make our point clear and binding this man in chains did not work.

Sometimes when we address certain communities around us, it's difficult.

It's difficult to see or to relate, to connect with people who are very different from us.

He, you know, when you, this town, these people here in this town saw a man that was what?

Imagine a town being tormented day and night, hearing the screams of this demoniac around them.

How long this man was in the state, we don't know.

But imagine this town having to deal with this day in and day out.

This was also a town that was not connected to any Jewish tradition and most likely not connected to God.

And always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying, cutting himself with stones.

But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him and cried with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus?

Thou Son of Man, most high, I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not.

And the first thing that comes out of this demoniac man is, don't torment me.

Anil Kanda

The Power of One - the Successive Joseph

I want to take you to a very familiar verse.

It's a verse that you might have heard throughout your whole life.

It's a verse that sometimes elderly people give to younger people, and it just reminds them of God's goodness.

This is a promise to every single child of God, every son and daughter of Adam.

For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord.

Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Then you will call upon me, go and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

And you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

The search for God doesn't begin with a telescope or microscope.

Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, this morning we just Come to you as we are.

We thank you, Lord, for a brand new day of life.

Thank you so much for the goodness of God that surrounds us each and every day.

Thank you, Lord, for your promises that are true for us, even when we can't see the fulfillment of them.

Lord, we pray this morning that you would bless us, that you would speak to us.

It's 1 that I preached not too long ago at a camp meeting, and I'm really excited about it because I'm really, really, I really love the life of Joseph.

You know, when I was first becoming a Seventh-day Adventist, I worked at this warehouse, quite interesting.

And the head of this warehouse was this really strong, powerful Samoan man.

Yeah, they're descendants of the giants, right?

I mean, 1 day I saw him, he says, Anil, come out to the parking lot with me.

I went out to the parking lot, and his car was right there, and there was another car parked next to him that the angle of the car parked next to him was almost touching his car.

And he says, look what I do when cars park so close to me.

And what he does, he backs his back to the car he power lifts the car moves it over like this and drops the car and then we both go back in the warehouse and I'm just man how strong is this guy but it was very interesting He invited me over to his house 1 day.

You know what Samoans love to eat, right?

And so when I went over there, I was like, ah, interesting, right?

And he says, I want to introduce you to my father-in-law.

He's been blind for many years, but he loves God.

And it was interesting, though this man was blind, it was like he obviously sensed where I was the whole time.

Even when I moved, he just knew where I was.

And he was talking about the Lord and he said, I wish God would give back my sight to me.

I would do anything he's called me to do.

And it was so interesting as we began to talk about the Lord, this man had memorized Scripture so well.

I mean, he was like the Samoan Randy Skeet, okay?

And, you know, he would turn to me and he says, what's your favorite verse?

You know, I was just thinking of certain verses and And I couldn't even quote them very well to him This is right after I became a Christian But what was so powerful is he just he knew the scripture so well he was going to an assembly of God church and this man, the way he learned the scripture, the way he memorized scripture was this, somebody taught him the scripture because he could not read the scripture and then he would recite it in his mind and think upon it a lot.

And I hesitantly said, I said, I'm a Seventh-day Adventist.

And I never forgot, he looked right at me, that direction where I was, and he says, ah, yes, Seventh-day Adventist.

And he said these words, those people know their Bibles.

Are we still the people of the book or we're just called the people of the book?

You know, there's 1 thing I want to challenge you for the rest of your life.

Whatever your calling in life is going to be, whether you're going through ups or downs, wherever you are in life, never stop reading your Bible early in the morning.

That action will sustain you the rest of your life.

It will constantly grow you and challenge you.

You spend time with God every single morning.

The Bible doesn't say, morning by morning Folgers wakes me up, does it?

It says, morning by morning the Lord awakens me.

The best part of waking up is when Jesus fills your cup.

So it's always important to spend time with God.

You know, this morning I was reading the life of Joseph.

I was just going over the entire life of Joseph, and I was just so blessed.

Tears were coming down my eye, and I said, I was just thinking about this beautiful life.

Here's a man, a young man, who God really worked in his life and at the very end turned things around in such a powerful way.

And yet throughout the entire life of Joseph, there was a lot of confusion, a lot of discouragement.

You know what's amazing about the scriptures?

The scriptures don't lie about the weakness of humanity.

The Bible doesn't simply gloss over the false amen.

And it's at this point that we can actually identify with the scripture.

That is why the Bible is a very relevant book.

Unlike any other book like, you know, the Bhagavad Gita or the writings of Gautama Buddha or whatever it is, the Bible does not gloss over the weaknesses of men.

And this is how we can connect with Scripture.

But what is so powerful is that the Scripture also states how these men struggled through their weaknesses and overcame their faults.

What we're going to be doing today is we're going to be taking a life, a good look at the life of Joseph.

Notice what the Bible says in Genesis chapter 39 starting with verse 1.

Just give you a brief introduction to the life of Joseph.

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Morning Devotional

The Power of One - the Successive Joseph

Transcript

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Parent Conference

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