 All right, welcome back Steps to Freedom. This is our 10th class and we're doing Miraculous Number 12 on the Miraculous that I put together. If you don't have the Miraculous, be sure to email me at Steps2Freedom, ADC, at gmail.com. Thanks. All right, so Miraculous Number 12. Last week, we talked about how Satan controls the mind. Do you remember what the two things were? Lies. Lies and fear. Good job. Lies and fears. Yeah. And then Satan's counterattack. If you experience some deliverance, you can bet you're going to get a counterattack within 24 hours. Okay? So you want to be mindful of that. Tonight, we're talking about James chapter 4, 7 through 10. Mike calls it this 10-step process, okay? So it's number 12 on the Miracle List. You want to follow the 10-step process, okay? And I want to break it down for you. James 4, chapter 4, 7 through 10, it leads to total healing. It is crucial. Ask someone to help you, okay? Ask someone to help you. Now, I will say this. This process, you're not going to just do it once in your life, but you're going to use this process to help you overcome the things that are hindering you, the things that are troubling you, sin that keeps popping up, negative thinking, whatever it is. You're going to use these steps, okay? James 4, 6 says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. You are required to humble yourself before God in order for this to work, okay? Here it is. James 4, 7 through 12, therefore submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament, mourn, weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. You're feeling down, you're feeling depressed, you need to be lifted up, right? So he said, follow this process and it'll happen. Number one, submit to God. So what does that mean? Jesus said in John 14, 6, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me. So the very first step in submitting to God is, you got to make sure you're going to the right God. You can only get to God the Father in heaven through Jesus Christ of the Bible. Not Christ consciousness, that's not Jesus Christ. You can't get to God the Father through Christ consciousness. You can't get to God the Father through Buddha, through Hinduism. You can't get there through another Jesus. So make sure that you have the right gospel. There's another gospel. Make sure you know what the Word of God says. Please don't just go off of what your church teaches or what the pastor tells you or what the guy on YouTube is saying, investigate it for yourself. Make sure that you have the right Jesus to get to the right Father. John 14 says this, Jesus is speaking. Jesus said, most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also. You should be doing the works that Jesus did. Verse 15 says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Verse 21 says, he who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. Jesus is such a good teacher. We know as I was taught, I went to Grand Canyon University, the teachers college, and they taught us, you got to teach it one way and then you got to teach it another way. Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. If you keep my commandments, then you love me. You can't get confused. Verse 23 says, Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my Word. He just said it a little differently. Yes, commandments, not just the 10 commandments, but those are very important. There is, I would say, his Word, right? All of the Bible is God's Word. All Scripture is God's Breathe, and all of it is for our benefit. So he says, if you love me, you keep my Word. If you keep my Word, then you love me. If you love me, you're going to do what I do, okay? So you have to examine your life, right? So this is how we submit to God. I submit that I'm going to do what you taught me to do. I'm going to forgive. I'm going to give kindness and love to people. I'm going to share of the abundance that I have with others. There's all kinds of things, right? He also said, don't worry. Do not worry. Did Jesus ever worry? He never did. No. So submit to God practically. Accept God's forgiveness. Accept His forgiveness. That might be hard for some of you. Yeah, but you don't know what I did. It doesn't matter. Keep going back to the cross. It's paid for. Accept God's forgiveness. Give up control. Give up control of what? Everything. Look, God cares about the little things and the big things. I've heard it said that, well, we got to go to work and we got to make money. And God doesn't expect us to just sit around and let him do everything. This is true. You got to live your life. Absolutely. But stop trying to control people and things and circumstances, okay? Give up that control. Let God take care of you. He's really good at it. Oh, I went too fast. I'm showing off. My slides can go fast now. Okay, believe the scriptures. I'll let that sit for a second. Believe the scriptures. God says He loves you. Believe it. God says the scriptures say I have a plan for your life. Believe it. He says I desire to give mercy. Believe it. And step out in your faith. So what does that mean? Step out in your faith. Well, you have God's word, right? And maybe there's some things in your life, especially if you've been tracking with us all these weeks. You've forgiven people. You've forgiven yourself. You're catching your thoughts. You're casting down imaginations. You're doing a lot of hard work. You gained knowledge. You've gained wisdom, understanding. And now you look at your life and you say, I want things to be different. I don't like where I live. I don't like where I work. I don't like the friends that I have. I'm not happy. I'm not satisfied with this. Okay, make some changes. Pray. Trust God. Submit to God, right? Submit your plans to Him. And He will direct your steps. Step out in your faith, though. James 1.22 says, but be doers of the word. Not hears only. Deceiving yourselves. You can read the Bible day and night. You can memorize scripture after scripture after scripture. And that's great. But if you never put it into practice, then you're deceiving yourself. So be a doer of the word. Okay, step number two. I'll go faster, I promise. Step number two, James 4.7a. Therefore submit to God. Oh, by living... Oh, that's a mess up, okay. Submit to God by living your life according to His word. Okay. James 7. James 4.7. The second part of that verse is, resist the devil. And He will flee from you. Some people think that if I just repeat, submit to God, resist the devil. Submit to God, resist the devil. Submit to God, resist that things are going to change. That's not how it works. You have to submit to God. You have to learn God's word. You have to have His word. Resist the devil. Actually that word resist. I learned from my mentor, Mike Smith, that it means to be on the offense. He used to be a fighter, an amateur boxer. And resisting the devil is like this. You're resisting him. He comes at you. You want to resist him back. Get away from me. You can't be like, devil, leave. You have to get a little aggressive sometimes. Right? Shut up. Stop talking to me. Then He'll flee from you. I was thinking about this. And some spirits won't leave. Some spirits are like teenagers. They won't move unless you yell at them. Not all, but some of them. If you have teenagers, you know what I'm talking about. They won't do a thing until you get really stern and serious. Right? Okay, maybe it was just my home. All right. How do we resist the devil? You have to take every thought captive. Take your thoughts captive. Look at them. Examine them. Is this a hopeful thought? Is this in faith? Is this a fearful thought? Is this a worry thought? Is this? Is this a fantasy thought? You got to examine these things. Take them captive. Resist the devil. You got to cast down imaginations. Like worry. Some people worry about things they have no business worrying about. Let's say, you know, you have a job, you've been there a long time, you're doing well, and then the person starts to worry. Oh my gosh, what if I lose my job? What if I get fired? Dude, you've been there 10 years. You're not going to lose your job. Relax. Don't worry. And even if you did lose your job, don't you think God's got that figured out? He's already got it figured out. Overthinking is one of the ways the devil comes at us. I like this. Overthinking, the art of creating problems that weren't even there. You can think your way into problems and thinking it's the devil, but really it was just you overthinking it. So resist the devil. Cast down imaginations. Like fear, doubt, guilt, worry, independence, pride. Also resist the devil and these imaginations. You know, fantasizing. There's a lot of fantasy. Disney brought fantasy right into our lives as little girls and little boys. Fantasy about how like marriage should be or how my life should turn out. Okay? I think about Bugs Bunny. I want to own a mansion and a yacht. My name is Elmer J. Fudd. I own a mansion and a yacht. He kept saying it. Remember that cartoon? He kept saying it over and over. Like as if to convince himself it was like that prosperity preaching. He was preaching to himself. The prosperity message. Fantasizing about what it could be, what might happen, all the way I want it and then you're spending all this time. Whoa, you better catch your thoughts and say, wait a second. I'm a fan. No, I don't want to do that. Daydreaming. Okay? It's the same thing. Fantasizing daydreaming. You have to catch your thoughts and cast down imaginations because I can guarantee you whatever you dream up is probably not what God has for you. Now he gives us thoughts. He does. The Holy Spirit will speak to us and birth a vision within us and it's different and it takes I think knowing God's words and the difference and experience, maturity. So resist the devil. Therefore submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. If you are living your life according to God's word and you're doing his word the devil will flee from you and if he doesn't, get loud. Get loud and be persistent. Number three. Step number three is get close to God. It says draw near to God and he will draw near to you. How do you do that? You pray. Talk to God. Pray. Pray in English. Pray in tongues. Pray. Talk to him. Talk to him about what you're worried about. Tell him, Lord, I'm really worried about my friend. I'm worried about my brother. I'm worried about my sister, Lord. One of my favorite prayers is I pray this. I go, Lord, teach me how to pray. Give me the words to pray. Talk to God. Worship. Worship. Many of you are not going to church and so worship could be a challenge but you need to do it. Maybe some of you are going through deliverance and you're like, I don't want to listen to anything. I don't, I want to just stay really focused on God. I only want to read the Bible. I don't want to listen to any music. I don't want that Kundalini music. I hear people talk about that. You know, don't worry about it. Sing it from your heart. But you need to worship the Lord. Create your own song. Pick a Sunday school song. Sing a hymn. It doesn't matter. If it's from your heart, even if you're singing a song, you know, a Hillsong song, I love some of those music, the old time Hillsong. Even if you're singing that, he's turned my morning into dancing. I mean, it's awesome. And you're singing that and you're worshiping and praising the Lord. That is how a lot of people get close to God. Some of you get close to the Lord through creative measures. Drawing, painting, decorating. You do it unto the Lord. Whatever you do, do it unto the Lord. Okay? Serve. Get out there and volunteer. Go help somebody. Give. Give financially. Give your stuff. Give your food. Worship God. Fellowship. Spend time with other believers. Oh, well, they don't believe in deliverance. So what? It's okay. Come together, agree on what you agree on. Stick with there. Stick with what you agree on. Oh, but they're Catholics. Okay. You know, they still believe in God. They still believe in Jesus. Okay? They got some things that are, you know, not exactly. They're not Presbyterians, but they love God. And they are good-hearted people. That's why you got to hang out with, you know, your family or whoever it is. Don't avoid them because they're Catholic. You can still fellowship with them. Maybe you don't want to spend a whole lot of time with them, but you want to love them, right? Fellow believers, people that believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins. All right? You want to spend time with other believers. You want to listen. Get close to God. Draw near to God by listening. Pray. And then listen to God. Listen. If your mind is always talking, it's always going, you're not going to hear that still small voice. Think about the word. Think about the word. Think about it. Memorize a short scripture. One of my favorite scriptures when I was first going through type of deliverance and healing was Jesus swept. It's the shortest verse in the Bible, but very powerful. I was weeping and I remembered Jesus wept. Jesus shed tears. He wept. Maybe he even sobbed. He related with other people in their sorrow and sadness. He knows how you feel. Number four. Plunge your hands, you sinners. This makes me a smile when I read this verse because it's like, cleanse your hands, you sinners, you know? You're calling me a sinner. Second Corinthians 13 5 says, examine yourselves as whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. So I'm thinking about this. We have different parts of us. We have our family life. We have our work life. We have our church life. We have our thought life. We have our emotional life. You could say these are different parts of a person or different areas of your life. Examine your faith in these areas. At work are you patient? Are you kind? Are you living like a Christian? Or are you cussing and lying and cheating? Examine yourself in these different areas of your life. At home with your family. Do you resemble a Christian? Do you resemble someone who has faith? Okay. So examine yourselves. You want to examine yourself so that you can know you know what's going on. Then you purify your heart. This says purify your heart. You double-mind it. So if you don't cleanse if you don't take care of the sin that's within you and purify your heart you'll go back and forth in what you do and what you believe and in your commitments. You'll be committed one day and not committed the next day. So it says this is Ezekiel 11 19 says and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart so I think this purify your hearts means examine right you're examining yourself see what's in there and then get it out whether it's through tears forgiving yourself casting out you got to get it out of there because you have to it's almost like crucifying these parts of your heart that are not in the faith the hardness you know the rejection the part of that rejection that pushes you to always be front and center you got to examine yourself you got to look at your life and say how am I doing am I afraid all the time that's the stony part maybe of your heart of your mind okay your heart your mind and your soul right it's called that the heart so you got to examine it your heart tears come up let them come out let them heal you number six so I took a lot of time and I even got a friend to help me there are three things it says it says lament mourn and weep so I'm breaking it down into three parts lament to lament we found in the dictionary means to be regretful anybody have regrets? ever do something you're like man I wish I hadn't done that I regret that well I think this is what lament is about think about what you did or how you still think and regret it strongly so I was living out of the valley for a couple years and while I was living out of town I rented a home here in Phoenix I sold my home two years ago now the market has doubled tripled in some cases and I remember about a year ago I got up in the middle of the night and I was thinking about man why did I sell my house I was living there right now it was like 90% remodeled exactly the way I liked it had the colors I liked I mean I had remodeled everything from the baseboards to the windows to the ceilings it was beautiful four bedroom house and I was lamenting I was like Lord I was being regretful like why did I sell that house if I would have held on to it I would probably make like $100,000 more today I could have been renting out the rooms it was exactly the way I wanted it the carpet only had my dead skin in it I hate other people's carpets of pet peeve anyway I was that night and I was crying and I was like gosh I'm so sorry Lord why did I do that I was regretting that decision strongly I didn't do it but don't stop there you can't stay in regret okay and then I mourned the loss I had to mourn the loss of my four bedroom townhouse in the premier lot right across from the saltwater pool with the big palm trees it was beautiful God bless the lady who bought it it was beautiful I mourned the loss of it I think the final step of mourning the loss will be deleting the pictures of it because it came out so good it was such an ugly 1970s property everything was 70s the wallpaper the carpet everything and I remodeled it and it came out beautiful and I have those pictures maybe the last step in mourning the loss of that project is getting rid of those pictures but don't quote me on that I'm not sure that's quite it I have to forgive myself I forgive myself for selling that property I sometimes you have to forgive other people now this decision no one talked me into it but I certainly have been talked into other decisions that I regretted you got to forgive them forgive those people and then let it go I can honestly say I let it go I wept I wept I allowed myself to get emotional over it I didn't fight back the tears I just let them come thankfully it was in the middle of the night as me and my cat were hanging out and I just let it go and I really let it go I can see forward now alright Lord I don't know what's next and there's been a lot of fear I'll be honest because our economy is crazy the housing prices are out of this world they're just astronomical and I'm thinking how will I ever be able to afford a home again and that worry will come it will come and I'm like Lord has a plan for me I don't know how it's going to happen but I'm going to keep doing my due diligence I'm going to keep working, keep saving my money alright I'm going to plan for I know it'll happen again it'll happen again but I had to let go of that old place let go of your regrets let go of it look you're probably never going to fit into that wedding dress back 20 years let it go okay it's not going to happen my hair is gray under here I can only dye it I can't get something back that's gone you can't get it back so let it go number nine let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to bloom you got to take this seriously look there's a time for everything okay there's a time to weep and there's a time to laugh there's a time to mourn and there's a time to dance let when you're going through this process you got to take it seriously and mourn be sorrowful weep okay everything cannot be a joke everything cannot be good I'm in my office sometimes like Lili today she wanted to talk about all the good things her dad was I go we're not here to talk about the good stuff you did not come to counseling today to talk about what's going well in your life I'm grateful that some things are going well in your life but that's not why we're here you got to get serious alright there's a time for fun and celebrating the good but then you have to go on the other side and take it seriously and look inward not look at other people and what they get out of it but look internally and number 10 after you've done all of that bring yourself down a little bit further humble yourself even more so and let the Lord lift you up by this point I remember that night when I was lamenting my house and letting it go I think I was I was probably down on the floor face and and I and it was like the Lord did lift me up he lifted up my he lifted up my head he lifted up my chin he lifted up my body he lifted up my attitude he lifted me up and so whenever we humble ourselves before the Lord and we say Lord I'm so sorry God look just this action alone is humbling yourself get on your knees get on your face do it on your bed I always thought I had to get on my knees on the floor look you can get on your knees on your bed I love that once it's great okay so that's the 10 step process now I was thinking about what are the blessings that follow this process healing yes deliverance yes you get to live free you are free to live the perfect purpose that God has for you freedom this is steps to freedom this is what we're talking about right it is for you know for Christ he sets you free so that you can live out God's purpose for you release you'll be able to release the bitterness against yourself for that regret oh I never finished school oh I sold that house prematurely oh I didn't you know whatever it is release the bitterness release the unforgiveness a lot of times towards yourself another blessing that follows this process is good physical health a merry heart is nourishment to the body after you go through all this weeping and mourning and there's dancing and joy a merry heart is nourishment to the body there's a lot of sickness in this world and there doesn't have to be you do not have to be dying of cancer you don't have to you do not have to have skin disease it's all emotional autoimmune diseases you do not have to live in that it's not for you it's not your portion not as a Christian not as a child of God you don't have to live with digestive issues again emotions messes up they cause things to stop working they cause things to work too fast godly self love is another blessing that comes from this I release that house I released it from my soul the regret and now I can feel good I don't have to say I had a house and I wish I still I don't even talk like that no one's ever heard me talk like that because I dealt with it and it's done it's all done I can love myself the God's way I can love myself the way God wants me to love myself he says love others as you love yourself if you're not loving others well then you probably don't love yourself and you need to go through this process see yourself as God sees you now that's probably different for everyone I'll share with you how I think God sees me I imagine myself as like a little three or four year old with my hands stretched up going like pick me up that's what I imagine that's how God sees me because I'm always like help me comfort me love me and I see myself as this little tiny girl to remind myself God always wants to pick me up God always wants to help me God always wants to cuddle and kiss me he always wants to love on me who can resist a little three or four year old who's reaching up at them no one can and I tell you what God can't resist you either so go to him all right reminders Wednesday night some of you get on zoom that's great if you have not been on Rick Katz zoom yet on Wednesday nights it's tomorrow night Wednesday night get on there and then at steps of deliverance at gmail.com and he'll send you the link and then it's the same link every week every Wednesday night they start at 6 p.m. or you can go on the Facebook page steps of deliverance also this class is going to start again Tuesday August 2nd and it'll be every Tuesday we'll start at 6 30 seems to be a good time for people getting out of work to register you know email me my name is Julie steps to freedom at gmail.com tell a friend please share this video too a lot of people have been sharing a lot of people have been watching clicking that's great thank you thank you for your emails I appreciate them the encouragement and lastly come to the Arizona email micahartcorkrishanity.com and make a reservation or make an appointment and get one on one counseling it's free it's free everything we do here is free so thank you great