In the Word of God, we say we understand, but we still do what we do. When people look at you, what do they see? Do they see the real you or a mirror image of what’s in you or on you? A lot of times spirits see spirits. If people look at you and see a spirit on you, they aren’t looking at you but the spirit that is controlling you. When you look in the mirror what do you see? Not what you’re wearing. What do you see when you look at you? Think about Michael Jackson’s song, Man in the Mirror. “I’m looking at the man in mirror. I’m asking him to change his ways.” He took a good clear look at himself. Have you ever taken a good clear look at yourself? What we usually see is what we’ve done in the past or what we’re going through. Maybe what people say about us. We tend to take that upon ourselves that they say “I’m this or that,” and you look in the mirror and say “is that who I really am?” After that we begin to do a self evaluation of our worth, tearing down the real us and say that couldn’t be me.

Snow white. The wicked queen sent her troops out to find the mirror. Mirror, mirror on the wall who’s the most beautiful woman of them all? You aren’t the most. There is one more beautiful. Snow White. The wicked queen sent someone out to kill her niece, but Snow White survived. The wicked queen in actuality was the ugliest one of all.

When we look in the mirror it will show us who we are. It can’t show your inside but will only reflect the outside. We stand before a mirror so we can be presentable before others because we’re concerned about what others think about how we look. During the 1970s and 1980s there was an opening of hearts and minds of people, dressing how they want, looking how they want. When I was growing up you had to look neat and dress properly. They didn’t believe in sagging, we only knew that was something that came from prison, because you only sagged to let another man know you were a woman. Why are young men sagging now? Its a style now to let other people see your underwear. Men need the companionship and intimacy of a woman, and when you lock and cage them up, they begin to revert to being dogs, mating with anything they can mate with. He tends to change the weakest man in there and converts him to be a woman in his eyes. He expects that man to be a woman to him, not to anyone else, just to him. If you can’t defend yourself against a bunch of men, they will try to kill you to convert you. Once you have become docile as a man, if you know anything about male dogs/wolves, they will turn their hind section to a dominate male, letting them know that they’re submissive. This happens in prison. You are no longer who you are. If young men out here are sagging, if you walk like a duck, talk like a duck, what are you? A duck. If you do what the world does, if your lifestyle is like the world then how are the people in the world going to perceive you?

But pastor I only do a little bit of it. What is that saying? Pastor I drink a little alcohol, but that doesn’t make me an alcoholic. I only go to the bar because they have good pretzels and chips. If you go into the bar drink a little beer and another saint comes by and sees you coming out the bar, what will they say? Nothing to you. The Bible says don’t let your good be evil spoken of. If you are not a crackhead, why do you have a spoon in your hand with a lighter?

What does Jesus need to do to break through to you, because its you who is doing what you are doing. If you look like the world, act like the world, talk like the world…the what are you? Of the world. We have to be excited about mimicking after Jesus not this world. Does this world have a heaven for you, or a place you can go not to worry about pain and anguish? The Bible says, mark yourself after the perfect One. Mark yourself after your Lord and Savior. A lot of the modern day people have people they like in sports, but when they begin to become idols then there is a problem.

All of a sudden you start living you life according to the broken bits and pieces of how others and you feel. Sometimes you’ll do things without ever really noticing, living your life according to what someone said about you or talked about you. When you live your life according to the world’s word, and not according to the Word of God, then you take on the responsibilities of the world. The Word becomes 2nd place in your life. The Bible tells us that by their fruits they will know them. What does a Christian really look like? Are you a Christian? Are you living the life of a Child of the most High God? The Bible says there is no name under heaven given where by men must, no probably, must be saved, except the name of Jesus Christ because He’s the One who died for our sins. How long halt you between 2 opinions? Either you’ll be a Child of God or child of the world.

What does God need to do to breakthrough to you? What does He need to do? What does He need to do to get you to do what you’re suppose to do and live for Him? Does He have to beat you up in every trial and every test, every time you turn around your going through? How many remember the song I Surrender All? “I surrender all, all to thee my blessed saviour.” When we say surrender all we don’t really understand what that means. A lot of times we surrender all or bits or pieces. We’re suppose to say all but we do some of the time. All means everything. All. That means your problems, your finances, your emotional situation, it means all. Because He can fix it all.

Ecclesiastes 7:10-25

Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.Wisdom is good with an inheritance: and by it there is profit to them that see the sun. For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it. Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him. All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself ? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time? It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this; yea, also from this withdraw not thine hand: for he that feareth God shall come forth of them all. Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in the city. For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee: For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others. All this have I proved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me. That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out? I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness:

1 Samuel 16:1 And the Lord said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.”How long will you mourn Saul?” Is someone caught in the past?

1 Samuel 16:2-3 And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord. And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will shew thee what thou shalt do: and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee.

Israel needs a replacement king. Most were thinking it would fall underneath the lineage, staying all in the family of Saul. But the Lord said it would come out of one of Jesse’s sons. When you’re going through something and God is trying to promote you, He will take you from among everyone else. It could be family friends…He will take you out of them because you’re not like…them. So He pulls you out. I’m not saying that they are not believing in God, but He pulls you out because you’re not like them.

1 Samuel 16:4-7 And Samuel did that which the Lord spake, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably? And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice. And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the Lord‘s anointed is before him. But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

When God gets ready to promote you to something, He’ll push them all away from around you. Because its you that He wants, because you are going to take care of the mission. He saw something in you that He didn’t see in them. God will wait for your time to be who you are in Him, and He will push everybody else aside. No matter how much you may fight it. When there is a great call on your life, God is going to direct you.

1 Samuel 16:13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.

Romans 8:30-39

Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 

Shall your headache, health, problems, circumstances? What shall separate you from His love?

36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What does Jesus need to do to get through to you? Nothing. He doesn’t have to do anything to break through to you. Who can open the door to a building if you have the key? You need to unlock the door to your heart and let God come in freely. If you can’t unlock the door, He will never get in. So you need to take you out of the equation. Amen.