 If you have your Bible let's go to Romans chapter 14 and verse 17, for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Somebody say amen. Now the kingdom of God is not against eating and drinking and somebody said amen to that as well. Let's go to Job chapter 22 and verse 21. Job chapter 22 and verse 21, 22 verse 21. Now acquaint yourself with him. Some other translation says align yourself with him and be at peace. Thereby good will come to you. I want you to notice the similarities between these two verses. Job is actually a book, it's one of the old books in the scriptures where one of his friends was talking to Job and telling Job that if you align yourself with God and be at peace, good, somebody said good, somebody said good stuff. Good will come to you. It's not just something you will chase, but it will come to you. And Paul from the New Testament writes in one of his letters to people who lived in Rome and he told them, he says the kingdom of God, it's not just eating and drinking, it's not just something physical, but he says it's righteousness, so it's like aligning yourself with God, peace, and then he says it's joy in the Holy Spirit. When I was a little bit younger, I understood the righteousness part and the peace part, but I thought joy and peace are sort of similar. When you get peace, you're sort of kind of joyful. I'm like why do you need to have joy if you already have peace? But looking at the writing in Job, you have a different definition of word joy. Joy is not just a bubbly feeling you get, just sort of excitement, but the author in Job or the guy in Job is telling us that when we align ourselves with God, we get peace and then we get this joy. How does this joy comes? When good things begin to come into your life that produce internal joy. Have you ever had a bad day? Well, we all had bad week and maybe a bad season in your life and you are on the bottom, you're down and out, you're tired of it, you're sick and tired of it, and then you finally have that moment with God where you align yourself with God. You get this breakthrough in prayer. Holy Spirit kind of touches you and after that, nothing changes on the outside yet, but your inside gets filled with peace. And when you get this peace, you can't explain this peace. Nothing happened on the outside that justifies this peace, but this peace gives you this assurance everything is going to be okay, and within an hour or two, you get a phone call. You get a text message. Somehow your boss decides to give you a raise. One of your friends that you've been praying for texts you and says, I'm going to come to church on Wednesday. One of the things that you were trying to really get through, you get that contract or you get the thing, you're like man, this is a good day. Joy. But everything starts with aligning ourselves with God, which brings peace. And then this peace, it attracts joy. It attracts good things into our life. Align yourself with him and be at peace and good will come to you. I want to tell somebody in this place tonight, if you find yourself in a very stressful, difficult situation, get your life aligned with God as soon as possible. Find yourself in prayer and get your emotions, get your frustrations, get your anger, your bitterness, your depression, your downness, your, you know, hurt somebody. Get all of that aligned with God. When you align yourself with God, it might take a day. It might take a minute. It might take an hour, but you align yourself with God. First thing that God will give you when you align yourself with him is he won't give you a wife or kids or a car. He will give you peace. You will still have a cranky husband or crazy kids. You may still have the car that doesn't drive if you don't put gas in it and you don't have money for gas. You will still might have this situation, but when you have peace, something happens. You attract like a magnet, good things into your life. Can somebody say amen? You know, I have a refrigerator in my house. It's a new refrigerator. It's an awesome refrigerator, but this refrigerator has a very interesting function. When the water that's supposed to come from the refrigerator, when you put a glass and you push the glass toward that little pedal that releases the water, and the first time when I saw that happen, you know, I thought I just had a wrong refrigerator. Maybe I do, but I would put a glass in and the water wouldn't go into the glass. It will miss the glass and go outside of the glass. And so it would always go on the floor because you have to kind of push the pedal in such a way and churn the glass so that the glass is not inside there. Otherwise the water is going to go straight on the floor. So all the new visitors who will come into my house and sometimes it's funny to watch them because they don't know that secret. So they grab the glass, they push toward the pedal, and all the water gets on them. So I wanted to change the refrigerator, but I just enjoy watching water getting on people. So I'm like, oh, this is not working. But in reality, they have not learned how to align the glass to the flow of water. The water is not going to change. You have to change the way you move the glass. And that's how it is with God. When you come to God, God has His water. His water is called peace. And His peace He is ready to pour into your heart. But you got to align yourself. You got to align your glass with God so that His peace comes inside of your heart. When His peace comes inside of your heart, you are already loaded because you're a magnet. You're walking around and only good stuff begins to be like magnet drawn to you. Because God's peace makes you a magnet on the inside for good things. Write this down. When you align yourself with God, you find peace. When you find peace, you attract joy. When you align yourself with God, you find peace. When you find peace, you attract miracles. You attract breakthrough. You attract promotion. You attract good things during your day. You attract, you know, awesome things begin to happen with your family, with your brothers, with your siblings, with your parents, in your work. You know, I had an incident that happened today with one young gentleman who said, he said, last night I couldn't sleep until two o'clock. I just had these troubling things that were happening in my life. He said, it was so, so hurtful and so painful. He says, he says, and usually when those things would happen, he's like, I would go and manage my pain, medicate my pain with something that was forbidden. But he said, last night I didn't do that. I decided right there and right there in my place that tomorrow I will go to church and I will pray and I am not going to go back to the world to medicate my pain. He realigned himself with God and you know what happened when he came this morning and I saw him. He says, you know, I feel so much better. I feel peaceful and the interesting part with this peace as we leave the meeting, he left and I received the text message a little bit later. He says, hey, there was this person on the side of the road that they had some problem with the tire and he says, I took this person, help him to fix their tire and took him to their job and then invited them to hunger generation and this is what he said. He says, I've never done this before and this feels so good. Align yourself with God. Be at peace and joy will come your way. Can somebody say amen? Each one of us in here is a magnet. The question is, what kind of a magnet are you? What kind of a magnet am I? A magnet is a material or object that produces magnetic field. It's a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials such as iron and attracts or repels other magnets. You probably have played with this before, magnet, where you put a magnet in all the nails, they are drawn to it. You don't have to push the nail. You don't have to ask the nail, negotiate with the nail, plead with the nail, cry with the nail. A nail just draws to the magnet and if you put a magnet toward other other things it will actually repel, it will push it out of its way because that's the power of a magnet. But magnet, this is not only happening with a magnet, this is what happens in people's lives. Have you ever noticed people's lives where some people nails like problems are attracted to them? It's like they move to a new zip code. They don't know anybody and in two weeks they already got problems. They moved into a new school, it's been one day and they're already in the principal's office. It seems like they've changed everything but when you are a magnet, when inside of you something is not good, you attract bad things like a magnet and that person can be placed on the moon and they will find bad trouble because the problem is not with their location, the problem is with their substance on inside. It attracts bad things and it pushes away good things out of their life. The question is what are you attracting in your life and what are you repelling in your life? Which things run when you walk and which things run to you when you come? That question has to be answered by us and we have to ask the real question am I a magnet? A magnet for what? What am I attracting in my life? What is constantly drawn to me? Is it because of other people or is it because of something also that is happening inside of me? When you find this truth that we read here, align yourself with God, it changes you on the inside. You become a peaceful person instead of a panic, pitiful, upset, negative, a downer, always upset and always just kind of angry with everyone, always pessimistic, always seek up, have empty, always you know suspicious of people, always you know mock people or just hurt people. You find that change inside and you become peaceful where there is nothing to be peaceful about and you're not peaceful because you're strong or because you took some medicine. You're peaceful because you've aligned yourself with God. Next thing that happens good will be attracted to you. I've experienced this many many times during my days when I would have a hard day and then I would find my time in the morning or sometimes in the afternoon in prayer and in prayer I would try to do my best not just to pray for the sake of prayer but to move my glass so I can catch the flow of the peace and the righteousness of the Holy Spirit and when I get filled with that peace I already now know in the beginning it was just always a surprise. I would walk out, I usually pray in the sanctuary, so I would walk out upstairs, I used to leave my phone upstairs and everything was upstairs so I would walk out upstairs and at first few times it was like this I would get a text message and let's say I would get an invitation to this like big church to preach and I'm like oh my goodness how do they know that I even exist or somebody else would send a text and say hey I just want to let you know this this awesome thing that happened or I would get some other like good thing and it would be always on the phone and I would be so excited and now I got into a habit when I will align myself with God and I feel sense of peace I already unaccounted like automatically begin to expect something good is going to happen. I anticipate because a magnet got magnetized something good has to happen because I got magnetized. I will attract good things to my life because the Holy Spirit magnetized this man and this man whatever he walks he will pick up nails he will pick up favor he will pick up good luck he will pick up blessings of God why because when you are magnetized that's just how it works when a person is depressed stressed overloaded say my life is hard sick and tired overloaded my love sucks you are magnetized everywhere you walk like nails things will come on you and you will know that you will feel there's like something bad is going about to happen boom it happened like boom I discovered prophetic gift it's not prophetic gift it's the law of faith it's if you magnetize you will attract nails if you magnetize with defeat and negativity this has happened to me they betrayed me they lied to me this person must lie to me as well that's exactly what's going to happen the Bible says faith is the substance of things hoped for that means things you constantly hope for you already have them inside that is the law of faith magnetized for miracles but in the January when me and my wife we gave our car our car away we gave a car away last year but that one wasn't wasn't painful it was a good car but it wasn't painful to give um this car was it was painful to give not necessarily because it was a better car and it was the first car that I bought with zero miles on it and it was an expensive car but it was with the fact that when we gave the car away at that moment we did not have any money and not account when I say any money it was for the first time in my adult life where I have a savings account that I did not have a dollar in my savings I always have some money somewhere saved but this is the time I had none the only thing I had saved was my tenants deposits which is according to the law is illegal to touch them and I remember we gave the car on Sunday felt so good and then the Monday came in so we have to go to work I've told some people that gave their car away they're like well that sometimes you make awesome decisions and sometimes you make stupid decisions and that was a stupid decision and I was a great so secretly I was hoping maybe somebody will give me a car then I look at some of the extra cars that some people had in our church I was like God never mind take it back that secret desire lasted only for one day and after that depression settles in it was about for a week week and a half because I need to go to work my wife needs to go to work and we don't have a car and we don't have money I can't go to the dealership and get a loan because I just don't want to the loans and so and I don't know what to do and where to go and I started to be discouraged inside I started to walk around be stressed out my thoughts are running 300 miles per hour what am I going to do what am I going to talk to my to my wife I'm thinking maybe I'll sell this I'll sell that but that's still not going to be enough but I don't want to and all these thoughts running running until my head start going crazy on the top of that one of my tenants that that side that unit I always had problems with them and the previous tenant a month before that moved out without paying and this tenant moves in and right in the middle of this sends me a text message I'm moving out and I was like really I'm like anything else could go wrong by the end of the day something else went wrong and just literally I became like a magnet I was like if something doesn't change I'm gonna go down and down really really fast but in the midst of that I would go up into my room our bonus room in the afternoon not during my regular prayer time because it was the morning I would lay on the floor and beg God please get my head out of this mess sometimes it would last an hour sometimes it would last two it will be days in a row I said God you gotta get me out of this because I am sinking I'm not asking you for the car just get my head out of this because I am losing it and God took away all the desires for people to give me cars and other things to call all of this stuff out and God just gave me just a clear sense of peace Vlad you gave this car because I led you everything is gonna be okay plus my son Jesus didn't have a car he was just fine I was like thanks Lord it's encouraging I will tell that to my wife you don't live very far the whole spirit just puts them on your seat you don't live very far it's completely fine you will handle it and within a few days I meet with a gentleman we look at one car you know and it was it was a new vehicle and it came you know we bought this vehicle for half a price for what it's worth and I just saw he even looked at me he says this stuff doesn't happen he was like you got some favor because we looked at it and the next day we got it I mean it was just simple like that the tenants who wanted to move out they sent me the text message later on the week and they said we've changed our mind you have to understand I've done real estate for eight years I've never in my history I've had a tenant who says I'm moving out and changed their mind what happened my magnet got changed and it started to attract different things my friends I want to challenge you today if your life is struggle it's a mess and it's a mess inside stop blaming your circumstances align yourself with God be at peace good will come to you miracles will come to you healing will come to you breakthrough will come to you marriage blessing will come to you because somebody say amen let's open to our proof text in the book of Samuel first Samuel chapter one and verse five we'll just look at one woman who had a similar thing happened to her verse five until verse seven but Hannah he would give a double portion for he loved Hannah although the Lord closed her womb and her arrival also provoked her severely to make her miserable because the Lord had closed her womb so it was year by year that she went up to the house of the Lord that she provoked her and therefore she wept and did not eat verse 16 says the following when she already goes to the temple she prays to God and then the priest you know rebukes her says hey you're drunk you get out of here you know get sobered up and then come back and pray and she looks back at him and she do not consider your main servant a wicked woman for out of abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now then Eli answered and said to her go in peace and God of Israel grant your petition which you have asked of him and she said let your maid servant find favor in your side so the woman went her way and ate and her face was no longer sad write down these few points that change starts within Hannah couldn't have children she was the first wife of her husband in the old tradition some people always have a problem with the bible because they say well you see the in the old testament a lot of these great men of faith that we talk about in the bible they had multiple wives and one guy asked the priest he said why we can't have multiple wives what in the bible does it say we cannot have you know many wives and the priest replied back to him and says somewhere in the bible he says men shall not serve two masters in this case we see that a man took a first wife and this first wife that he loved she couldn't have children because she couldn't have children he takes a second wife you must understand little bible history a lot of the polygamy that existed in the old testament in Israel that was permitted not encouraged but permitted only existed under one exception of course except Solomon who was a little bit crazy but everybody else who had an extra wife they usually had it because the first woman that they've married couldn't have children and in that generation to have children it's like to have life it meant to have legacy to have work source to have people help you out and so and this man he takes a second wife because the first wife doesn't have children so he takes her second not because necessarily he loves her or because she's beautiful but because he needs somebody to give him kids and so he takes her hey this is hey can you make kids yes you're my wife so she comes in as you can imagine she has a little competition with the first wife because though she's healed she can produce children but she knows she's not a favorite and she's not important to that man and the first woman knows i'm cute and i'm loved but i'm also useless so she has problems both women are having problems one is not loved and the other one is barren so one that is barren walks around depressed and the other one that is not loved walking around being a witch being a monster hurting using all of this language this harsh language against her and see that's what happens when we don't have an inside of us a magnetized mind magnetized by the promises of God we will live on two extremes either depressed or arrogant we walk around either insecure or we are monsters crashing and hitting everything and anyone that walks in our way we all have done that i remember you know a few times embarrassing story but there was a time when when ilia and nas and martin were doing stocks they were making a lot of money in stocks and i i don't know how that stuff works i mean these guys are genius when it comes to that and i remember they would have their little click and they would come and talk and sometimes would whisper what's going on and i got so jealous like you know i'm like a little guy outside of the circle i'm like man these guys are going to be millionaires and i'm going to be driving my little Toyota Camry 2000 and asking them maybe for a little handout i was so jealous and i was just walking around depressed i don't remember my prayers during those days i was like god just don't forsake little poor servant right here god just just god just help me just just help me god i'm just going to serve you just don't leave me behind that's it you know and i felt like Hannah and then it's really embarrassing to admit when the whole thing crashed secretly i was happy not because they crashed but i was like i don't have to worry about it and i'm like wait this is as bad as the first position see that's what happens when you don't have god as a foundation in your soul when somebody is doing good or when somebody is preferred before you you walk around depressed and when they fail you secretly of course you will never ever tell it to no one but secretly yes competition is over that monster lives within each person who does not have a magnetized mind by the holy spirit all of us have that the depression and then the monster it lives within one house it lives within one soul one day you walk around those people today who are extremely insecure give them power Hitler will have nothing on them because insecurity switches a person quickly into a terrorist inside they become a person who is rude who is harsh why because a man who doesn't have god as a foundation of his soul he's dangerous dangerous to be friends with dangerous to be married with and dangerous to be a close friend with because he's unreliable he's unkind and the holy spirit wants us to be magnetized inside with his love that we are assured of him and if somebody succeeds or if somebody doesn't succeed around us that we are basing our confidence on god on god's will for our life and we're not competing with the guy beside us because we are complete in the god who lives inside of us can somebody say amen let's put our hands together for the lord this woman inside of her she had so much pain she was so grieved she struggled on inside and she had a reason her circumstances were the blame if you look at her circumstances you will understand she doesn't have a child the other woman in the house is ridiculing her so she walks around on inside bruised up and she is a bad magnet on inside it is true the reason why she is negative on inside is because of her circumstances but her circumstances won't change until on the inside this woman changes and you see this woman walking into the temple hurting complaining crying weeping and she bawling her eyes out to god she's praying all of her concerns out to god she's aligning herself with god and then the priest finds her talks to her and you see afterwards this woman wipes her tears and the bible says she stopped being sad nothing changed on the outside everything was still the same but something changed on the inside of this woman i think i know what happened a magnet got replaced instead of being debbie the downer instead of being i am nobody instead of being you know what i'm not loved god has forsaken me these people just hate me that woman i wish she will die she's hurting me so much and my husband is just not there to support me instead of blaming everyone around her something changed on inside of her she became confident not cocky but confident and she walks out of the temple the bible says with a spring in her step she's no longer sad remember right before this she was so sad that when the husband gave her double portion of food which is an insult if a woman is not feeling good don't give her double but in those days if you give a woman a lot of food i guess it meant love guys if you ever give a woman a lot of food then she's depressed you're gonna lose a woman you're gonna eat that food by yourself i see some girls saying no no more food more food god bless you too they are on this feast and the husband gives his wife double portion he gives her preference he gives her compliments he says hey it's fine you don't have kids you're better to me than 10 kids everything is fine boom brings her this big steak she looks at that and the bible says instead of saying thank you honey she leaves dad walks away imagine Thanksgiving dinner you probably all have had those relatives or maybe you've been one of those relatives who come upset at this family gathering and you sit down like no i'm walking away and you leave the whole lunch and it's embarrassing everybody's watching and you're like awkward and then everybody else begins to leave that's exactly what happens this woman gets so upset she walks away from the dinner she's hurting she's just she just had it enough she goes to god and she begins to vomit everything to god say god this is what's happening this is what's wrong all these people are so wrong why did you and she complaining whining complaining whining and then something shifts something changes she receives a word the bible says she stops being sad she walks out the next day she comes back to the temple worshiping and then the next verse she gets pregnant and we don't see that bad woman mentioned again in her life why you may blame your what's happening inside of you and your circumstances but remember this your circumstances will not change until what's inside of you changes how does that change align yourself with god be at peace good will come to you many of us instead of going to god with what's happening inside of us we keep going to people and i love the idea of having a counselor having a pastor having a mentor but if it's been 10 years and it's the same issue that you spend talking thousands of hours with the same people i think you need to stop looking for new people who can listen to your problem as they used to the other people i think you need to stop switching home groups switching mentors switching counselors switching churches because they don't understand well if it's the same issue that's been happening for 10 years that people give you advice on maybe it's time to wrap everything back and say you know what i'm going to go to somebody who understands and somebody who can help me with it and not just somebody who can pat me in the back and says i feel you but says hey let's realign you let's change few things i know they're all wrong but there's some things you're wrong about too let's switch that first and let me give you peace and shut up walk out of this don't think about those people think about me and i will do a miracle in your life because somebody say amen prayer changes us faith changes things when you pray you change when you have faith you will change the circumstances i think it was in 1994 opera winfrey wrote a book called purple collar and this is not sharing her story doesn't necessarily make me vindicate of everything that she does or she says but this story has a very interesting point she read this book purple collar buys this book for all of her friends she becomes obsessed with this book it's some very wonderful story and secretly she has this dream when this book becomes a movie i want to be in it now at this time opera winfrey weighs 212 pounds she is extremely insecure she's been abused she's been taken advantage of sexually she nobody knows who she is this is just a girl who just runs around has these big dreams who has a lot of hurts and a lot of pains and has this big ambition that one day she wants to be in the movie she moves to chicago and at 1995 she gets a call where they actually say hey we are auditioning for this movie would you mind coming and so she got so happy she goes to that auditioning and they audition her months past she never hears anything about whether she got accepted or not and lo and behold all of these negative pessimistic thoughts you're fat you're nobody you ugly nobody loves you you got abused there's no man that protected you and all of these thoughts begin to just play in her mind you will never amount to do anything she said i went to a farm and on this farm she said i was walking around in circles where the horses were racing and she said i was bawling my eyes out and weeping before god and singing the song all to jesus i surrender all to him i give my whole life the whole idea she was praying and seeing and saying god all of my insecurities everything that i think about myself all of my inner pain all of my inner struggles all of my doubts god i give it to you right there she's walking surrendering her life realigning herself with god there is a call in the house and that was actually a director sieven spainberg that director the famous guy i was really practicing his last name actually today and i messed it up forgive me sieven you're amazing god that director at 1995 calls her on the phone and says we are going to be doing this movie you will be in this movie and we invite you over ta-da-da she goes in shoots in that movie and the rest is history from that movie everything changed if you watch the preview of that movie and you look you will look at her in that movie that's not the same person you see today that person in the movie is a person who was just like hannah bruised up on inside who had to realign herself with what god says find peace and have good things step by step not right away come into her life because somebody say amen in the conclusion right down three things that prayer does when we align ourselves with god the first thing is it takes us from whining to worshiping see we all can start in prayer whining crying complaining blaming other people but we have to always end or come to a place where we can worship worship is a sign you got magnetized worship is a sign you already have peace when you start worshiping and it replaces whining something changes on inside you're not no longer pitiful you're now powerful because somebody say amen the number two what prayer does is it make turns us from sadness to sacrifice see hannah walks in into the temple sad she walks out from the temple already promising to give her son that she will have now think about this here she is depressed for not having a son but when god changes her she says god if i get a son i will give him again and i will be without a son and i'm gonna be completely fine with that and that's what happens with god changes you on the inside you become radical sacrifice makes sense why because a changed person and inside does some really radical things and the last thing is that she moves from a tormenter to a mentor see she had a woman in her life who always belittled her made fun of her spoke negative about her made her feel miserable but when she came to the presence of god she wasn't looking for a man she wasn't looking for a mentor what she was looking for is i was looking for god she was pouring her soul and there was Eli walks from the shadows and says hey hey what are you doing she starts a conversation with him and the Eli looks at her and the Eli says this hey listen god heard your prayer go in peace everything is going to be okay and now somebody in the authority spoke a life into her situation that's how god gives us mentors and pastors if you have been abused and hurt people made fun of you when you come to god many people find a mentor first before they find god but you gotta find god and have the holy spirit bringing right mentors into your life who will speak life into you so that you will rise above your situation and change your situation for the glory of god because somebody say amen