 Hi there! This is Pastor Vlad. And before we go into this week's content, I would like to invite you to become a part of what God is doing at Hungry Generation today. This year, we've seen a great blessing of the Lord, an anointing of God, God's healings and salvations and deliverances. And in 2019, I know that God wants to take us further. And many of you who are watching this video right now and watching this message, you've been receiving from Hungry Gen, you've been growing, your world has been changing and we give to God all the glory. But we would like you in 2019 to become a part of what God is doing. And you can do that by sowing your best gift into this ministry, or maybe doing something monthly, like a partnership, a reoccurring gift. This will help us to go further in 2019 and bring more of what we're bringing to you to many, many more people. Me and my wife, we do that every single year. Our church does that every single year. Well, once a year, we give a special offering to God. And then we also become partners of this ministry by our monthly contributions. And I give you that opportunity today to become our partner and to become somebody who contributes to what God is doing today. Below is a link where you can make that happen. So why don't you ask God, what would God have you give this year to this ministry to help us go further in God? And now let's go into this message. We are delighted to what God wants to do today in this service and what God wants to do in your life in Jesus' name. As we are approaching 2019, I know that 2018 has been a great year for many people. And we thank God for all the salvation, all the healings, the intership that we have had, the CDs that were released, the conferences that we have had, the many trips that Pastor Vlad took. And you guys went with me there in the spirit, amen. Amen. All the people that we've made an impact on, thousands of people through online community that God has used us to make an impact on. But 2019 is going to be better. It's going to be our best year yet. Can somebody say amen? It's going to be our best year yet. Today we are starting a new series that will be called Encounter. Because I believe that God's goal for us is to encounter Him, is to encounter the Holy Spirit. We love the Holy Spirit as a church, amen. And when we encounter the Holy Spirit, our life becomes different. The goal of this series, I'm just going to give you my secrets out from the beginning. My goal in this series is to encourage you, challenge you to live a life of prayer, fasting, and giving in 2019. That if you looked at the life of prayer, fasting, and giving as, that's not for me, that's for them. That in 2019, you rethink that, amen. And not just occasionally, but to do it regularly and as a lifestyle. To make prayer, fasting, and giving like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Part of your life, amen. One of the things that we're going to do is at the end of January, we're going to do on January 27th, we are going to do a sacrifice Sunday. Now sacrifice Sunday, I know where sacrifice is a negative word for some of you. And it doesn't mean we're going to do something bad or kill something. We're going to bring to God our best gift that we've ever brought. Something that may be beyond our convenience and our comfort zone as it relates to our finances. And we will create, it's going to be a habit that we're going to do every single year. Once a year, but especially next year, we have some financial needs as a church. One of them is that we had a school that rented our facility for over 15 years. And the school paid generously, they covered pretty much a lot of our bills. And as you have seen, the school has been replaced with our kids zone. Our kids zone now occupies that place and the school is here no more. They didn't get accepted for one more year of funding from the government. And, but it came exactly at the right moment for us as a church because we were so tight we couldn't fit the kids in. And when they said that they're moving out, the moment the kids zone got remodeled, we moved in. Our kids attendance doubled in the first Sunday. But as our kids ministry is growing, our finances went down. So this is where the Lord is using me and you now for the next year. Instead of the government to begin to take care of the things of the church. Are you with me? Now it got silent. But I believe that next year that our church is not going to be dependent on some big millionaire. It's not going to be dependent on the government. It's going to depend on the sacrifices of all of us. We're going to make that happen. Can somebody say amen? I believe God has grown our church now to the place where we don't need an outside help. Where we from this house can support this house. Are you with me? And so in January 27th, I ask you that you ask God, what would God have you bring? For those of you watching us on live stream, from Germany, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, India, other parts of the world, people who write us every day that this house is like their church. We would like you on January 27th, not to skip the live stream, but to participate also in the same thing and become a partner with hungry generation. Church, I have to remind you that the first time the Lord provider, God the provider was mentioned in the Bible. It was mentioned when God revealed himself as Jehovah Jireh to Abraham. Abraham did not have a financial problem. Abraham was wealthy financially and Abraham was asked by God to bring a sacrifice. And when he was bringing a sacrifice, God stopped him and God provided a sacrifice that was God's gift to Abraham. Now, I understand when I read the story, sometimes I'm like, God, why did you bring a sacrifice so Abraham can give it back to you? Why could you just take it yourself? But God tests us many times and I would like you to ask God, next month, to give you a sacrifice. You might say, I don't have anything. Ask God to provide you a sacrifice. I heard businessmen one time in Louisiana who was working on this contract and Rehard Bonke came to church and he told God, if at the end of the year I get a bonus for $1 million, he never got anything closed before. He says, God, I will give $1 million to sponsor the whole crusade of Rehard Bonke. See, oh, flies from another country, comes in and out of all the thousands of employees, picks him and for some weird reason gives him $1 million. So he asked God and God gave a sacrifice and he blessed him. The next year, he prayed for two millions and for two crusades and God provided two millions in exactly the same way for a crusade. And you might say, this is kind of weird stuff. I'm not sure I like what I'm hearing. In the New Testament, it says God gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater. See, most of us in here, we know God is somebody who gives us bread, meaning he meets our needs, helps us to pay our bills. But see, some of you, the next year, you will discover God as someone who gives us seed, not just bread. Jehovah Chyre, the one who gives a sacrifice. Come on somebody, hallelujah. So next coming here, I challenge you as your pastor and I challenge you as the preacher in this house that I want us to grow and stretch ourselves in the area of giving. I learned the hard way about the importance of stretching two weeks ago. Me and my wife, we go work out. She's more consistent. I'm just more of, I work out for the same way most people go to church, just for the check mark. Not you, but I'm saying most people outside of our church. I just go there just for the check mark. But this particular time, we decided to make it a marriage thing so to work out together. And so we're doing squats and, you know, girls, they do squats pretty much every day. And so I do squats once in six months and stuff. So I decided to do squats with her on this Smith machine where, you know, it goes kind of all together, the bar goes together. Now I was so focused on the lip, not to hit the little hinges on that that I did not focus on the proper posture. Because when you do squats, you have to have a proper posture and you have to, you know, pull the weight from your back into your, into your squats. So anyway, as I was wrongly postured, little did I know is that I felt something in my back. It wasn't the Holy Spirit. It was something sharp and hot, but it wasn't God. And as fell, my back went out and because I couldn't walk after that without excruciating pain, couldn't sit down without holding myself and couldn't get up. And the reason why that happened is because I don't stretch before I work out. The old me before a week ago. And a lady who does massages came to my house last Friday, last week. And the moment she came in, before even she started doing a massage, she says, I want you to bend. And I could not be honest with you. I couldn't go even more than what I'm doing right now without sharp pain. I just couldn't. And so she says, well, you don't have a problem with your muscles as much as you blown out your back and you need to see a chiropractor, but you know, it's Christmas time. So all the offices are closed. And so last Sunday, when I preached about healing of God, most of you don't realize I was in excruciating pain. I couldn't get up from that pew without Ivan helping me. He was holding my back like this and helped me to get up. So some of you maybe thought like, what's going on with Pastor Vlad and Ivan? I just needed help. Okay, that's all. Ivan actually knows that the moment I blow out my back, I right away drove to his house and I said, hey, pray for me and stuff. And, you know, he's like, what for? And I was like, brain surgeon, never operate on their own brains. I'm like, I pray for healing for other people, but I need now people to pray for me, even when I met with Jeremy, you know, and asked Jeremy right in the parking lot of Starbucks. I say, he prayed for my back. I'm like, I need as much prayer as I can get so that I can minister to others. And by God's grace this week, you know, honestly, without the help of the professionals, because they were all closed, God just restored my back and completely have no pain whatsoever. Praise be to God. But this is what I've learned. If you don't stretch, you're going to become stiff. And some of you, the area of giving for you is a very stiff area. In fact, me talking about it gives you pain. Perhaps your back is out. Perhaps there is a man that is lodged. Perhaps you're too attached to things. Perhaps the issue is not the church and money. The issue is not that you have a lot of money. It's that money have a hold on you. And God wants you to stretch and God wants to heal that area. So that when you hear giving, a word comes out of your mouth, say, preach, preach. So you will not be, ah, it's again that church again. I knew it. I should have not went to that church and all after money. Pastor just wants my money because see your back might be out. And God wants you to stretch in this area. So that there is no pain in that area. So that you're not stiff, you're not stagnant, but that you are flexible in your relationship with God. Somebody say amen. Hallelujah. You know, when it comes to fasting, giving and prayer, I found out that in my life, one thing that keeps some people away from being generous, living a life of prayer and fasting is this. Is they say this thing, I don't have a prompting. You know, that's good for you. You're giving 10% to the church where you go. It's good for you. You fast and pray, but God is not leading me to some people. They're only motivated by problems. Others are only motivated by promptings. But I believe in the New Testament, Apostle Paul says to the Corinthian church. He says, whatever you purposed in your heart, give to God. That means there will be many occasions where God will not prompt you. You're gonna have to purpose. Meaning you purpose in your own heart that I will do that. Did God tell you? He doesn't have to tell me to brush my teeth. I don't feel prompted to brush my teeth. I purpose in my heart to brush my teeth. And all the people around me are thankful for that. There are things in your life. Let's see, God prompts Abraham, give your son. But Solomon never prompted, been prompted by God. He purposed in his heart. I will give God a thousand bulls. See, God prompted a rich ruler. Give everything you have. But a Mary was never prompted to give her whole income and put it at the feet of Jesus. She purposed in her own heart. Some of you are thinking, oh, God is not going to be pleased if he doesn't pull me into it. No, God will think you're mature if you can now purpose things in your own heart. He doesn't have to prompt you about it. And somebody say amen. A mama and a daddy will never look at their child and say, I'm so disappointed in you. You're the biggest disappointment in my life. Why? Because you have grown of age. We're now on your own. You make your own sandwiches and you put your own dishes and you clean your own dishes. I didn't tell you to do that. Why didn't you wait for me to tell you? How many parents will be disappointed in their children? No, you will be happy if you say, finally, you grew up. You make your own sandwiches. You clean up after yourself now. I don't have to tell you why because you're matured. If you live only by God's promptings or by people's problems, that's the only thing that pushes you toward God and drives you toward God. The Lord wants in 2019 to mature you that you can purpose in your heart and go into that. Can somebody say amen? See, some of us, I want to give you one more nugget, is that sometimes our routines create revival. But if we keep them too long, they'll put us into a rut. See, sometimes what happens is that when we are just only prompted, we develop certain routines when we walk with God. And what happens with these routines, at first, they stretch you and they pull you into a revival. See, for some of you, to be here on Sunday morning is revival. But in a year from now, you will be in a rut by coming to Sunday morning. Why? Because God, the very routines that brought revival yesterday, if you keep them for too long, they'll lead you into a rut. So the question is not, well, oh, that's good, Pastor Vlad. I knew I had to stop coming to church in 2019. Thank you for confirming that. The devil is a liar. That's not what I was saying. What I was saying is that you have to learn to change things with your routines in 2019 to stay in revival. I'll give you a workout example, since all of you are interested in that. A few months ago, I was working out, and again, I am not some fitness guru, and fitness is not necessarily my biggest passion. I just do it for the check mark and for maintenance. So I was doing a bench press, and I don't lift a lot on a bench press, but I decided to put a plate. You know, if you're a man, you have to lift a plate. And so I lifted a few times and I was like, you know, I think I could do it. And so I saw Jordan there. Jordan, he comes to our church. And so Jordan, you know, he's a buff guy, big guy. And so I asked him, I said, hey, could you spot me? And I didn't ask him to spot me because I was afraid that it will drop me and kill me. I asked him to spot me because I knew that I could not do the plate three times, you know, in 10 reps. There was no way I could do that. But if somebody is watching me, I'll do a lot. Just to save myself from embarrassment, you know, like, because there's a pressure, you know, like somebody is watching you're little, you do the unthinkable. And so I'm thinking like, Jordan is going to stand there, you know, and I'm going to push that through. I'm going to let a blood will come out of me, but I will push that through. And so, and there he was, you know, he's standing, and he doesn't know that I've never done three sets of 10 with the plate. And so he's spotting me, you know, I did three sets of 10. And after that, literally, I felt like I'm an Iron Man. I am the Mister Universe. And Jordan looks at me and he says, he says, dude, that was so easy for you. He said, next time just like, add more weight. And I didn't want to ruin this, my, my, the fact that, you know, I feel all much, I didn't want to tell him I'd never done this in my life. But, you know, Jordan was right. Jordan wasn't trying to kill me. Jordan wasn't trying to, you know, ruin my little, little celebration. What he was in fact challenging me is that now at this time, which I still do a plate, and I was planning to do a plate for the rest of my life, but I know that I have, in the area of Bench Press, I have plateaued. And the only way to get out of that is not to say, I'm not going to the gym. No, it's to add a little bit more to the plate. Not another plate, because then you won't have a pastor, preaching pastor next Sunday. I will die. But add a little bit more next time and create a new routine for next year. How many of you in this room think that you benched before in your relationship with God that a year ago it was revival, but now it has become an old routine. In fact, so old, you don't even see a thrill, a passion. You're not growing in it. You're not getting closer to the Holy Spirit. It doesn't stretch you. There's no sense of resistance. And the goal is not to say, well, I'm going to quit church altogether to get my passion back. Nobody does that with the gym, but nobody should do that with their faith. What you need to do next year, probably, is to see which routines require minor adjustments. Maybe as the church goes into fasting, something you've never made a part of your regular Christian life, to make fasting your regular Christian life next year. Perhaps you've been fasting for this year and you're saying, you know what, this whole fasting thing is not doing anything to me. What if during fasting you turn off your phone, the one that you're on right now on Instagram and turn it off for three days? What if you give up not only food, but you also give up caffeine? Oh, Jesus, have mercy. Did you say caffeine? That's like another plate on my plate. What if this coming year, the prayer life that you do always do on your way to work as you're also doing makeup and checking your phone that that's called your prayer life? What if this coming year on Friday morning from six to seven, you will make it your routine to come here for prayer? For some of you, maybe that's been your routine and the Lord has challenged you to go either deeper or to go more, but I challenge you, church, revival is not a magic. It's not God's just randomly giving people revival. It's people choosing to grow in the routine so that they can walk in revival. Somebody say, man, maybe the same thing we need to do with giving is start sewing, you know, and I will speak more vulnerable with myself. I saw the same thing, a certain rod that came with fasting and I saw the change for me was to begin to not just fast, but disconnect completely from fasting, during fasting, disconnect completely so that I could receive more. There were a few months where I, you know, did instead of three-day fasting to go way longer in that. Same thing in prayer. When my prayer gets in the rod, one of the things that I started to do again is to take a day during a week, one day and spend that whole day in prayer. Now, I understand that's not something you may do. That's something that your work might not allow you to do. It's part of my job, but at the same time, what it does is it started to stretch and I started to feel the sense of resistance with the flesh, a sense of feeding on the spirit and sense of closeness to God, a sense of revival that starts bubbling inside of my spirit. And same thing can happen to you, but you got to find your routine that's been your revival, but now it has gotten you into a rut. Perhaps you're like Elijah, you're sitting by the brook and the raven stopped coming and the water stopped flowing, but two years ago this routine brought you revival and now this routine is keeping you in the rut. The Lord is bringing a shift in 2019. Prayer, fasting and giving is where God wants to take us in 2019. Can somebody say amen? And I'm not saying this to make it, oh, this is so painful. This is so hard. Make it as a part of your habit and grow in it for God. There are people here today. Your challenge in 2019 is honestly to start tithing, to start putting God in your finances. And I'm speaking to Christians, people who call this church their home to in this area to grow and some of you up to now you made excuses. You're like, well, I come on Sunday morning. That's my tithing. Maybe you said, you know what? But I serve. I hold the camera. I take pictures. I'm on the worship team. I flip slides. You know, I work at the kids zone, you know, throughout the whole summer when it was being remodeled. You know, I speak here. I do so many things. That's my tithing. That is your giving, my friend. That is your serving. And that is so important and so appreciated. And from the depths of my heart, I say, thank you, but that's not tithing. The Bible says in Malachi to bring your tithes to the Lord, the God's house. It's interesting. It does not say give your tithes. Why? Because tithing is not giving. It's returning to God. What is his? Let me give you an example. It's like me giving you a car for a week and saying, hey, could you keep my car for a week and I come back a week from now and then you come to me and I say, well, I have a gift for you and you give me my car. And you say, I just felt generous. Just felt like, just felt prompted to give you a car. What am I going to say back to you? I say, no, you didn't give me a car. You returned my car. See, that's what the tithing is called. Tithing is not called giving. It's called returning. That's why people who don't tithe according to Malachi, God called them thieves for the same reason. If you would keep my car after I came back and you would say, oh, that's mine now. I wouldn't call you say, oh, yeah, that is yours. No, that's called stealing. You don't call me a thief if I didn't bring you a Christmas gift. You might call me greedy. You might call me stingy, but you would never call me a thief. Why? Because I never took something that's yours. God that doesn't call people who don't tithe just greedy. He just says that sometimes what happens, it's stealing. That's strong words and I did not write them. And that's why I want a challenge in 2019. God wants you to trust. God wants to trust you with resources in 2019. But there's one thing you have to remember. God don't trust thieves. Oh, how dare he not. The same way you don't. If you know a family relative who comes to your house and takes things that is not theirs. When they come into your house, what's going to happen? You're going to be extra careful. Will you stop loving them? Will you denounce them? No, you're probably not even going to block them on Instagram. You're going to still keep them closed, but this is what you're not going to do. You're never going to trust them. You're going to love them but never trust them. You have to understand one thing is that you may say, why does God not trust people who don't tithe for this reason? They don't trust him. Why should God trust us who are humans if we don't trust him who is good? We should do an article right here, right now. So I just want to challenge and I understand the etiologian sitting here. Pastor Vlad, this is all good, but it's the Old Testament. In Malachi, the verse about tithing, two, three verses before God said this, I am the Lord, don't change. That's for all those people who think that's the Old Testament and that changes. God on purpose put the thing, I don't change. Literally cut every single excuse from me and stuff. And we have the freedom to do whatever we want. I want in 2019 to say, God, I trust you. Please trust me. Trust me with greater anointing. Trust me with greater opportunities. Trust me with open doors. Why? Because my heart is in the right place and I want to bring my tithe to God's house. One more correction and I'm going to get off of this and touch more on this series and that's this. Bible says that the tithe belongs to God's house. I need to correct this because last few weeks I've been meeting with different people and a lot of our people ask me questions many times and there's a lot of misconceptions and it's completely fine. What people do with their finances is none of my business. But we should know what the scripture teaches. Tipping the barista, giving the person on the street, blessing your mom with a Christmas gift, blessing your wife with a new watch, buying your husband a new apple. The iPhone is not a tithe. It's generosity. It's charity. It's giving and every one of us should do more of that. But that's not a tithe. Tithe belongs to God's house. It doesn't belong to a televangelist. It doesn't belong to an awesome ministry that you listen to and it doesn't belong as your mom's Christmas gift. It belongs to the house that you come and you call your home church. That's according to the Bible. Amen? Now that I said things that will make many of you love me. Matthew chapter 2 verse 1 and verse 2. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who had been born the king of the Jews? For we had seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. For those of you who were here last Sunday, you experienced more like an Easter service. So today is going to be a little bit more, just few moments about like a Christmas story. Though this is not a Christmas story because the wise men came probably two years after Jesus was born because Jesus was no longer an infant and he was no longer in the manger. He was now in the house. The wise men, they studied these, they were magi, they were like the scientists. They studied astrologists. They studied the stars and they saw a particular star and they were led by this star and the first place they came to is to Jerusalem to get some more information on this king of the Jews that they suspect who was born. And as they came to Jerusalem, we see that the Herod, he got really, really nervous and the whole Jerusalem was troubled with him. He gathered the people who knew the stuff about the king of the Jews, the scribes and the priests and the Pharisees and the Sadists, all of those people. He gathered them up and says, tell me more about this king of the Jews and from the back of their heads without searching the internet, they said, oh yeah. And they quoted the prophets saying this is where he will be born. This is everything about, almost like gave him a whole folder of the profile of the king of the Jews. And what they did after that is went back to their normal life. The wise men took that information and ran with that information and they saw Jesus. They worshiped Jesus and again, they opened their treasures and gave Jesus, the baby Jesus, most precious gifts, gold, silver and another. They gave him precious gifts and they went back to sleep and the Lord instructed them not to go back the same way to Herod. I wonder sometimes, what would I have done 2,000 years ago if Jesus would have been born when I would be alive? Would I be a Herod who gets threatened by Jesus? Would I be a Pharisee who has all the information about Jesus? Or would I be a wise man who is not threatened, who is not satisfied with the information? But who wants to see Jesus face to face? As I ponder on this question, I think I have an answer on what I would do with Jesus and the answer I have also for you. I know what you would do with Jesus if he would have been born today. Do you know what you would do with Jesus if he would be born today? Exactly the same thing that you do with Holy Spirit right now. Which is for most of us, absolutely nothing. The second greatest event on this earth is not Jesus being born. That was the first greatest event and most people were completely indifferent to it. They were satisfied with knowing about Jesus and very few were interested to chase Him, to find Him, to experience Him, to worship Him and then disciples to give Him their life. But today there is another event that is happening right in front of your nose and this is the event where Jesus said, another like me, just like me, but another one is coming. In fact, he is my father. The reason why Holy Spirit is Jesus' father is because the Bible says that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit. The meaning, he is even going to be greater than me. The reason why is because he will be in many places at the same time. He will not be lodged in Jerusalem. He will not stay in Israel. He can be closer to you than ever before. And my friends, I have a news for you. He is here right now. Another one is coming and he has came. My question to you today and this question I present to me as well. Am I like a Pharisee? Pentecostal. Because see we Pentecostals, we Charismatics, we have this feeling like Holy Spirit belongs to us. Like Holy Spirit has special connection with our denomination because we got the tongues figured out. We sometimes feel like Pharisees. We have all the information about the Holy Spirit and sometimes you find the Pentecostal Christians, they speak in tongues and they have the information. They walk around saying he is ours. The way Jewish rabbis were saying Messiah our King. But have no power. Have no signs, no wonders. Have no deliverances. Have no healings. Nothing supernatural is happening with Pentecostals except the fact they have more information and they speak in tongues. And why is that? Because the Holy Spirit does not belong to Pentecostals. He belongs to people who are hungry and who are willing to get up and seek an encounter with him. Whether they are Baptists, whether they are Catholics, whether they are Presbyterian, we say God, I want to see you. I am hungry for you. Holy Spirit wants to be sought, pursued. I want us as a church. An encounter with Holy Spirit is this. Is that what I read in the prophets, in the scriptures, I see in my life. Pharisees read it. Wise men saw it. I read the Gospels and every few verses I see Jesus healed. Cast out demons. He's Jesus healed. I don't want to be a Pharisee who creates a doctrine for why this is not happening. I want to be a wise man and take this as a challenge to my status quo and say, God, one more step closer. See more healings. One more step closer to seeing deliverance. But if demons manifest, people will run. Maybe those people have demons and they need to run. That's fine. I'm not after that. I am not after pleasing or impressing people. I want to not be a Pharisee who reads about and never sees that. See, Jesus was not planted in some planet, Mars. He was within the reach. Holy Spirit is not somewhere in some other country. He is within your reach. He is here right now and your hunger and your desperation will push you out out of your first say fair Sanitism into any counter with God. Let 2019 be a year of the Holy Spirit. Let this be a year of wanting to know Holy Spirit. Not just knowing about the Holy Spirit, but knowing Him personally, knowing Him intimately and knowing Him passionately. Come on, somebody. So an encounter is God wants us to have an encounter with the Holy Spirit. God wants us to meet the Holy Spirit and God wants us to walk with the Holy Spirit. God wants there to be signs that you know the Holy Spirit. God wants there to be results that you walk with Holy Spirit and I'm not talking about only that you can speak in tongues 300 miles per hour. That is great. That is awesome. But it does not mean that you know Him. You walk with Him and that you are with Him. Come on, somebody. In the conclusion, I want to give you just practical three tips on having an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Principle number one, before we have an encounter with the Holy Spirit, we have to have a right information. What wise men did is they, not only they saw the star and they decided to go and see it. They first went to Jerusalem to see that they have the right information of where the king is supposed to be born. An encounter with the Holy Spirit happens. Number one, we need to first be scripturally grounded. Not every spirituality is scriptural. Today, there is a wave of Christianity that calls himself Christianity or spiritualism called New Age. And some of you here today, you read their books. Books like secret. Books like present now. Books like courses and miracles. Books like the power of now. And you read them, you're like, wow, this is like the Bible. Just has less verses. It's New Age. And it's not the Bible. It's a cult. And I know where it was born from because the church was busy learning how to explain God instead of seeking to experience Him. But most of the people in the church said, that doesn't cut it for me. I read. I'm not an idiot. I'm not a theologian, but I'm not an idiot. This Bible is marked with stuff you can't explain. You can have more degrees than a thermometer. You still can't explain it. I want to experience it. And people became so hungry to experience God that they looked at the people who preach this and they pushed this aside to experience angels, to experience miracles. And that's where that stuff was born. But listen, just because it's spiritual and supernatural. It doesn't make it scriptural. That's why it's wise for you and I before we run after the baby Jesus check with Jerusalem under the right direction to where he's born. Otherwise, you'll find a king but not the king. You want to find you find the spirit. You will find an angel. You will find stuff going through your spine. You will find energy going through your spine. And at the same time losing marriage, losing children and at the same time going into away from God because not every spirituality is scriptural. My dog knows that too. He's so desperate and thirsty sometimes for water that he doesn't see the difference between the little place what he's supposed to drink from. He runs to the toilet and drinks the water like there is no tomorrow. Now I am not my dog but so many of you here today you're hungry for supernatural. You don't even care where you lick the water from. Not everything that looks like water is water. That's why you need the Bible not to have a manual for your life but a map for an encounter. Many of you here today you stopped reading the Bible for one reason. You reduced this to a manual. And you read it. You're like, I read it. Read it twice. Read it three times. There's nothing new there and from what I hear they don't create updates for it. There is no revisions for it. So you know what? I already have read it. I've studied. I know what it says and it doesn't relate to how I should live in my life. Because life is so different. It doesn't talk about things that I battle with right now. I feel like it's not relevant to your to my life. See, you reduce the Bible to a manual. That's what Pharisees did. They studied and studied but didn't realize the Bible held directions to an encounter. The Bible held directions to you. Meet God to face to face. Yes, it has principles but its goal is to lead you to a person whose name is the Holy Spirit. What do I take from that? Is if I want to have an encounter I have to fall in love with the Bible so it can teach me the Holy Spirit. I've read the Bible over over 20 probably times from beginning to end. I try to read it once and sometimes twice a year. I don't read it to get a sermon but this year I have changed my perspective on reading the Bible. I don't read now to get a revelation or to get an insight. I say, Holy Spirit, I want to find you here and I want you to give me directions and I want to read the Bible freshly. And this year I challenge you pick up your Bible. Read your Bible more than you read your other books. Visit books but live in this book because only this holds the right directions to where the Holy Spirit is and who the Holy Spirit is. Books will inspire you. This will give you an encounter. Books will give you knowledge. This will give you a meeting face-to-face with God. Books, they will update your thinking and they will challenge your status quo in many areas and that is good. There is nothing wrong with that. We need to read books but this is different. This is a bread of life. This is the sword of the Holy Spirit. This is the hammer. This is the fire. This is the seed. This is the oil. This is the water. This leads to an encounter with God. That's why atheists don't fight other books. They fight this book. That's why communists did not fight any other book. They fight this book. Why? Because there's something dangerous about this book. It can change the way you live. It can change the way you spend your time. It can change the way You will never see the books of a new age being banned from other countries because they're not a threat to a demonic kingdom. This one is. The second principle of an encounter with God is not only I have right information which comes from the Word of God but I have also proper inspiration. Proper inspiration speaks of the wise men who had a star and they were led by this star. The star speaks of God elevating things, people, ministries, miracles in our life for us to like bring confirmation, inspiration and encouragement in our pursuit of the Holy Spirit. If you will watch your life carefully you will find out pretty much most of the encounters with God that you had were sparked by something you've read, some sermon that you have listened, a book that maybe you went through, a conference that you went through and they planted a small seed of saying, I want that. I'm hungry for that. Books and Holy Spirit. Many times conferences, like the things that even happen here a man of God came, prophesied, a man of God came and then God moved and something within you connected and say, God, I want that. I am hungry for that. See, God brings ministries, miracles and men of God in our life and many of you you have them on your phone. You have them on your YouTube channel. You listen to them or watch them on TV. You have some of their books and it's the star elevated so high. Sometimes we get discouraged by those stars because we look. We're like, man, there is no ladder on this earth. They can get me get me there and you listen today like, man, how can I get there? But I want to correct that notion to say that our goal is not to get there. Our goal is to get there. Our goal is not to grab a ladder to climb to see the star. Our goal is to let it lead us into an encounter that made them a star to bring a change in our own life and ruin us for normal and set us up to be people that God called us to be. God is not looking for another Billy Graham. God is not wanting to see another Benny Hinn. He doesn't want another Sean Bolts, not white. He wants you and he wants me and you can become the next if you have an encounter with God. That's why they all so different. You look at some of these men. One has a hair up to this size. The other one has no hair at all. You see, one person dresses this way. The other person dresses differently because God is not looking to make copies of them. God says when you encounter me the way they encountered me you will be different but you will be powerful. You will be anointed. You will be a challenge to your generation. You will be walking with my power. You will be walking with my anointing. You will be walking in your gifts and in your callings. You need an encounter. You need an encounter. To have an encounter with God I must have a right information meaning I have to look at the scripture not just as a manual but a map. I have to have right inspiration and for those of you in here who's like I just don't need anybody except the Bible. Yeah, unsubscribe from your Netflix as well. I just don't listen to anybody on the thing because all of them they want my money. Hulu wants your money too. Yeah, HBO subscription that you got. What do you think thereafter? To bless your life? Of course not. And so don't fool yourself. I'm not listening to any. I don't need any extra exploration. Yeah, because you got a lot of poison coming into your life. And so we need positive inspiration. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 12 is that before we can run the race meaning before we pursue God we have to be surrounded with the cloud or witnesses. That means you got to have a right inspiration. You got to have right examples. You got to have right models sometimes. You got to be surrounded with the crowd and with the cloud. Can somebody say amen? And so we have information. We have inspiration and then but what makes Wiseman different from the Pharisees is they had desperation. Is they were willing to take the information and walk with it to an encounter instead of take the information, memorize it, get a degree, learn in other languages and never make a move. They moved. They went forward. They were not perfect, but they moved. They progressed. They pursued. Their encounter wasn't big. That encounter was with the baby. Like if I'm thinking it would be pretty disappointing if you went to see a king and found the toddler. Like you're looking at your gifts. You're looking, you know, I'll take him back to my kids. Never mind. You're thinking about taking a picture. You're like, how's that going to King? What am I going to bow to a baby? This encounter did not look like the encounter the Moses had when the mountain was full of flame and Moses came, his face was shining and the two tablets. This encounter was not like other men who had where the fire of chariot showed up. This encounter was not such where there was voices and thunderings. This encounter was unique because it was so small. But wise men encountered someone bigger than any other men ever encountered in their life. Though it was smaller, it was bigger. And so what I want to encourage you right now is that when you begin to seek God for an encounter, you will have it. But never be disappointed if it comes in small size. If it comes in something that you felt the Holy Spirit and people describe it, you're like, well, my mind was like this, but I was real, but it was like this. I just, I felt the fire of God. I felt this sense of that he is real. He is with me. I didn't, it wasn't anything like super. It was, it was small. The reason why God gives you a small encounter, because he doesn't want it to be the only one. He wants it to be the first one. He hopes to set up an appetite that you come for more. Unfortunately, this is where us and wise men have to part ways right now because wise men got one small encounter. They gave all they had. They worshiped Jesus. They were instructed by a dream and they never came back for another one. They never came back to visit Jesus when he was 12. They never came back to visit Jesus when he was 30 and like a dove came upon him. They never came back to visit him at 31 when he walked on water and when he multiplied bread. They never came to visit him at 33 when the veil was torn apart and the dead man became alive and Jesus rose from the dead. They only had one encounter, but I believe as hungry generation, if we have an encounter with God, it will change us. But if we have encounters with God, it will change our world. And I'm ready for an encounters with God. I want to go from glory to glory. What about you? I want this year not to be a year where you only remember what God did at 16. Where you only remember what God did at 24 or where God did few years ago when you got baptized in water or baptized in the Holy Spirit. I want 2019 to be your best year with God. Best year with Holy Spirit. Your best prayer life to be in 2019. Your best fasting life to be in 2019. Your best giving to be in 2019. Your best year with God to be in 2019. Can somebody say him ahead? I want you to rise to your feet. Let this year be the best year in your encounter with the Holy Spirit. You know what Jesus called Pharisees? People who didn't have curiosity about him when he was young became the critics of him when he became mature. If you have no curiosity for the Holy Spirit in a matter of five, six years you will be the biggest critic of what he's going to do. It's the curious that stays sane. It's the curious. People who are fascinated, not familiar. People who are not just happy that they can explain it but they're not content that they can experience it. People who don't just say wave it and say this is written but say also this is written and I see how I know how it works in my life. I want us to be those people in this coming year when Jesus rebuked the Pharisees when he was underserved he called them tombs. See tombs, tombs are places where life used to be. It's the places that have people that used to have life. I don't want us to be tombs in 2019. We remember good old days. We remember the miracles of the past. We remember God's experiences with the past. I want us in 2019 to be temples. We don't hold. We don't hide that which used to be alive. We host someone who is alive. The Holy Spirit. Dear Holy Spirit, we want an encounter with you as the offerings will go by. We're going to do what Weisman did. As they worship they gave. Give your best seed today, your best gift, your tithe or your offering. As they go by I want you to release your heart to the Holy Spirit. Say, Lord, 2018, I want an encounter with you. An encounter even if we will come as a size of the baby. But it will not be the only one. It will be more and more. Father, I pray for your people right now. I pray for the offerings. I pray for the tithes. But most importantly I pray for our hearts. We want to encounter you. We want to know you. We want to be known by you. We want to be like the Weisman. We want to not settle for what we hear. We want to experience. We want your word to become alive. And we want to God be inspired by the things you placed in our life instead of be discouraged, God. And we want to see Jesus. We want to see the Holy Spirit. And we want to be used by Him in Jesus' name. Amen. As we give, let's worship. And on social media, we're so thankful to you. Better is not good enough. The best is yet to come.